REMO'l't:.  53  ToKAGfE 


THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 

5'5I.8 


people's  problem 


— AND  ITS - 

SOLU'TION 


— BY - 

WILIaIAM  H.  LaYON. 


SIOUX  FALLS,  UAK: 
Published  by  the  Authok. 


Copyright,  1886 
By  william  H.  LYON. 


{All  Rights  Reserved.) 


V 


/ 


Press  Job  Print,  Sioux  Falls,  Dakota. 


“THE  PEOPLE’S  PROBLEM  AND  ITS- 

SOLUTION,” 

- 


-BY 


-WILLIAM  H.  LYON.- 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  AUTHOR. 

Sioux  Falls,  Dakota. 

Dear  Sir: 

Please  accept  this  work  with  the  compliments 
of  the  author.  It  is  believed  to  be  the  first  book  ever 
published  in  the  Territory  of  Dakota. 

The  object  is.  not  only  to  present'  what  the  writer 
believes  to  be  the  only  peaceable  and  permanent  solu¬ 
tion  of  the  Industrial  Problem,  but  also  to  assist  in 
forcing  the  Labor  Question  into  politics  with  a  well  de¬ 
fined  object  in  view.  The  work  does  not  urge  the  for¬ 
mation  of  a  new  political  party,  but  the  infusing  of  new 
principles  into  the  old  parties.  To  a  considerable  ex¬ 
tent  it  represents  the  views  of  the  leading  Knights  of 
Labor  and  thoroughly  endorses  some  of  the  most  im¬ 
portant  principles  of  the  Order. 

The  extravagance,  jobbery  and  corruption  of  legis¬ 
latures  and  boards  of  aldermen  are  also  discussed  and 
a  complete  remedy  suggested  by  enlarging  the  power 
of  the  people  and  restricting  that  of  their  representa¬ 
tives. 

The  suggestion  as  to  how  United  States  Senators 
can  be  virtually  elected  by  the  people  somewhat  sfter 
the  present  manner  of  choosing  the  President,  without 
an  amendment  to  the  National  Constitution,  is  also  be¬ 
lieved  to  be  thoroughly  practicable  and  will  do  away 
with  the  present  frequent  disgraceful  choice  of  United 
States  Senators  who.  under  no  consideration  whatever, 
would  have  been  elected  by  the  people. 

Please  send  to  the  above  address  a^oimrked  copy 
of  the  publication  containing  your  opinion  of  the  book. 
Price  7 DC.  cloth. 

Rewpecttully  yc^u’s 

'"YTh,  LYON, 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign  Alternates 


•  1  < 


https://archive.org/details/peoplesproblemitOOIyon 


GONTRNTS. 


Chapter  I.  '  The  Problem . p^g©  6 

Increase  of  wealth  and  poverty — Reports  of  labor  bureaus 
— Terrible  condition  of  sewing  women — Dickens’  des¬ 
cription  of  Boston  working  classes  in  1842 — Labor- 
saving  machinery — has  not  lightened  toil — ^broadens 
chasm  between  rich  and  poor — 1,000,000  idle  men  re¬ 
placed  by  machines — Condition  of  English  working 
classes  in  olden  time — Startling  growth  of  monopo¬ 
lies  and  combinations — Disappointing  effects  of  Eman¬ 
cipation — Cheaper  to  hire  labor  than  to  own  the  la¬ 
borer — “Interests  of  capital  and  labor  identical” — 
Bosh  of  political  economists — Necessity  for  employers 
to  pay  lowest  possible  wages — Goulds  and  Vander¬ 
bilts  not  to  blame — Necessity  for  pools  and  combina¬ 
tions  —  Railway  consolidation  —  Centralization  of 
capital — Increase  of  tenhnts  and  large  farms — Des¬ 
cription  of  “bonanza  farms” — Dismal  outlook — Waste 
of  competition — Superfluous  middlemen — Evil  effects 
of  money-getting — Failure  of  representative  govern¬ 
ment — Tendency  to  one  man  power — Necessity  for 
bettering  condition  of  working  classes — Recent  riots 
— World  trembling  on  verge  of  Revolution. 

Chapter  II.  The  Current  Solutions.  .  .page  47 

Prohibition — More  currency — Overproduction — “Go  west” 
Foreign  market — Free  trade — Protection — Christian¬ 
ity — Education — Co-operation — effect  in  England — 
Rochdale  Pioneers — Strikes  and  Arbitration — Fallacy 
of  Henry  George’s  remedy — Foregoing  remedies  un¬ 


satisfactory  and  leave  Industrial  Problem  unsolved — 
The  True  Solution. 

Chapter  III.  Telegraphs . page  61 

Chapter  lY.  Railroads . . page  71 

Chapter  Y.  Mines  and  Manufactures  page  95 

Chapter  YI.  Distribution . page  131 

Cliapter  YII.  The  Dakota  Plan . page  151 


E^^°Errata — “Owing  of  labor”  should  be  “owning  of  la¬ 
bor,”  on  page  18. 


'THEl  PROBLRM. 


I. 

The  highest  ideal  of  society  should  he  the 
greatest  amount  of  happiness  to  each  individual 
member.  The  true  grandeur  of  a  nation  is  not 
its  ability  to  sell  a  yard  of  cloth  or  a  pair  of 
shoes  for  a  fraction  of  a  cent  less  than  any  other 
people;  it  is  not  gigantic  factories  in  which  to 
manufacture  purple  and  fine  linen  that  its  weav¬ 
ers  can  never  wear;  it  is  not  thousands  of  miles 
of  railroad  upon  which  the  men  who  built  it 
cannot  afford  to  ride;  it  is  not  magnificent 
churches  and  public  works  and  marble  palaces 
and  palace  cars  while  the  men  who  built  them 
have  to  live  in  hovels  and  in  dirt;  it  is  not  in 
allowing  the  few  to  accumulate  hundreds  of 
millions  of  dollars  while  other  men  just  as  hon¬ 
est  and  more  willing  to  work  cannot  get  a 
chance  to  earn  their  daily  bread;  it  is  not  in 
founding  magnificent  colleges  and  universities 


6 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


which  the  children  of  the  builders  are  unable  to 
attend:  it  is  not  in  boasted  free  institutions  and 

/  r 

universal  suffrage,  when  office  can  be  bought 
for  gold;  but  the  true  grandeur  of  a  nation  is 
to  have  every  man  able  to  sit  under  his  own 
vine  and  tig  tree  with  none  to  molest  nor  make 
him  afraid;  when,  in  return  for  a  reasonable 
amount  of  toil,  he  can  enjoy  a  fair  share  of  the 
comforts  and  conveniences,  and  even  of  the  lux¬ 
uries  of  life,  and  have  time  to  spare  for  pleasure 
and  the  improvement  of  his  mind. 

To-day  the  idlers  and  the  drones  live  upon 
the  fat  of  the  land,  while  the  men  who  work 
the  hardest  receive  the  least  of  the  fruits  of  their 
toil.  While  there  is  more  wealth  there  is  also 
more  poverty,  wretchedness  and  vice  in  the 
world  to-day  than  ever  before.  An  enormous 
amount  of  our  boasted  annual  increase  of  wealth 
is  flowing  into  the  coffers  of  the  men  who  have 
not  earned,  and  do  not  need,  and  cannot  even 
spend  it.  One  per  cent,  of  our  population  now 
owns  half  of  our  national  wealth. 

With  all  the  labor-saving  inventions  of  the 
ao:e,  the  labor  bureaus  of  even  Massachusetts 
and  Illinois  report  that  a  vast  proportion  of 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION.  7 

their  workingmen  do  not  receive  wages  enough 
to  support  their  families  without  the  earnings 
of  their  wives  or  children.  The  majority  of  the 
wage  receivers  of  the  world  would  he  within  a 
few  weeks  of  starvation  if  thrown  ont  of  work. 

The  condition  of  the  sewincr  women  in  oiir 
cities  is  too  terrible  to  tell.  It  would  be  a  dis¬ 
grace  to  the  most  degraded  tribe  of  Hottentots 
that  ever  trod  the  earth.  The  report  of  the  la¬ 
bor  bureau  of  Massachusetts  is  a  terrible  com¬ 
mentary  upon  onr  industrial  system:  “Statis¬ 
tics  prove  beyond  a  doubt  that  most  fallen 
women  have  been  compelled  to  fall  by  their  pov¬ 
erty.  Of  one  thing  these  researches  have  con¬ 
vinced  us,  that  no  matter  how  zealously  mission¬ 
aries  may  labor, or  how  reformatories  or  magdalen 
asylums  may  be  multiplied,  the  root  of  the  evil 
will  not  be  reached  until  women’s  wages  will 
supply  them  with  the  necessities  and  some  of 
the  comforts  of  life;  elevating  them  above  the 
clutch  of  sin,  and  freeinn  them  from  the  neces- 
sity  of  making  merchandise  of  their  bodies  and 
souls.  Many  of  them  earn  only  ^1.50  per  week.” 

The  last  report  of  the  Hew  York  labor 
bureau  shows  an  equally  terrible  state  of  affairs 


8 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


in  Xew  York  City  where  sewing  girls  are  often 
compelled  to  work  for  twelve  and  a  half  to 
twenty-live  cents  a  day. 

How  does  this  compare  with  what  Charles 
Dickens  wrote  from  Boston  in  1842:  ‘‘There 
is  not  a  man  in  this  town,  nor  in  this  state,  who 
has  not  a  blazing  fire,  and  meat  for  dinner  every 
day  in  the  year,  nor  wonld  a  flaming  sword  in 
the  air  attract  so  much  attention  as  a  beggar  in 
the  streets.” 

There  are  thonsands  of  the  working  classes 
in  this  land  of  the  free  and  home  of  the  brave, 
who  are  in  a  more  helpless  and  pitiable  condi¬ 
tion  than  the  most  degraded  slaves  in  the  dark¬ 
est  acres  of  the  world. 

There  is  not  a  penitentiary  in  onr  land 
whose  convicted  thieves  and  robbers  and  assas¬ 
sins  have  not  better  food,  better  clothes,  better 

accommodations  and  an  easier  lot  than  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  our  hardest  woi’kingr  and  most 
law-abiding  men  and  women.  What  a  com¬ 
mentary  is  that  upon  the  boasted  civilization  of 
this  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century!  A 
world  with  such  an  industrial  system  makes  a 
flt  training  ground  for  Hell ! 

The  rich  are  growing  richer  and  the  poor 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


9 


relatively,  if  not  absolutely,  poorer.  The  same 
causes  that  contributed  chiefly  to  the  downfall 
of  the  Roman  Empire.  There  wealth  became 
so  centered  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  that  the 
poor  became  dependent  upon  the  charity  of  the 
rich  for  the  very  necessities  of  life.  All  they  got 
or  expected  to  get  was  bread  enough  to  eat  and  the 
circus  to  enjoy.  And  aside  from  the  moral  deg¬ 
radation  of  accepting  such  relief,  the  Roman 
populace  was  better  fed,  better  clad  and  bet¬ 
ter  amused  than  millions  of  the  working  classes 
all  over  the  world  to-day.  Patriotism  neces¬ 
sarily  disappeared  and  the  Empire  met  its  right¬ 
eous  retribution,  and  became  the  prey  of  bar¬ 
barians  who  were  not  cursed  with  such  social 
inequality.  The  same  seeds  of  death,  the  riches 
of  the  rich  and  the  poverty  of  the  poor,  are  rap¬ 
idly  germinating  in  onr  own  civilization,  and 
unless  removed  will  bear  fruit  more  rapidly 
than  ever  before.  It  has  been  well  said,  and 
recent  outrages  have  proved,  that  the  Huns  and 
Vandals  and  Barbarians  we  have  most  to  fear 
need  not  come  from  heathen  lands,  but  are  here 
among  ns,  and  are  the  legitimate  fruits  of  onr 
industrial  system. 

It  is  doubtful  if  all  our  labor-saving  macliin- 


10 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


ery,  supposed  to  be  the  crowning  glory  of  this 
age,  has  lightened  the  toil  or  improved  the  lot 
of  a  single  laboring  man.  Under  the  present 
industrial  system  a  ‘‘labor-saving”  machine  with 
which  one  man  can  do  the  work  of  two,  does 
not  enable  them  both  to  earn  as  much  by  work¬ 
ing  half  their  former  time,  but  merely  allows 
the  employer  to  discharge  the  superfluous  em¬ 
ploye,  to  and  accomplish  the  same  result  by 
paying  half  the  wages  he  did  before.  This  is 
going  on  with  every  industry  in  which  such 
machines  are  used. 

The  following  recent  Associated  Press  dis¬ 
patch  is  a  fair  sample  of  their  effect  upon  the 
world ng  classes: 

“A  committee  of  Wheeling  nail  manufactur¬ 
ers  passed  through  here  (Pittsburg)  on  their 
way  to  Boston  to  inspect  an  automatic  nail  ma¬ 
chine  of  recent  invention  and  report  on  its 
ability  to  do  the  work  claimed  for  it.  If  it  is 
available  large  orders  wdll  be  given  by  the 
Wheeling  manufacturers,  wPo  hope  it  wdll  solve 
the  wage  problem  and  do  away  with  strikes  for¬ 
ever.” 

Even  the  recent  discovery  of  natural  gas. 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


11 


which  ought  to  have  been  an  unalloyed  blessing 
to  mankind,  has  thrown  thousands  of  coalminers 
out  of  employment  and  caused  unlimited  suffer- 
ing. 

The  undisputed  tendency  of  labor-saving 
inventions  is  to  render  unnecessary  the  employ¬ 
ment  of  adult  males  and  skilled  workmen,  and 
to  accomplish  the  same  result  with  machinery 
and  the  poorly  paid  services  of  women  and 
children.  Such  has  been  the  deadly  effect 
under  the  present  industrial  system,  that  to-day 
there  are  one  million  idle  men  in  the  United 
States  whose  work  is  done  by  machines,  and  for 
whom  there  is  no  place  to  earn  their  daily  bread. 

In  every  industry  the  introduction  of  labor 
saving  inventions  tends  to  make  the  employer 
more  independent  of  his  workmen  and  to  sup¬ 
ply  their  places  with  machines.  Since  the 
present  inventive  and  manufacturing  era  dawned 
upon  the  world,  the  working  classes  have  been 
more  helpless  than  ever  before.  Then  the 
weaver  and  the  slioemaker,  the  mechanic  and 
the  smith  owned  their  shops  and  tools  and  stock 
in  trade.  They  worked  as  they  pleased,  and 
quit  when  they  liked.  Now  they  are  merely 


12 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


laborers  in  gigantic  inannfactnring  establish¬ 
ments.  So  great, is  the  snb-division  of  labor  that 
no  such  workman  knows  a  trade,  and  almost  his 
very  existence  depends  upon  the  caprice  of  his 
rich  employer.  His  wages  seldom  afford  him¬ 
self  and  family  more  than  the  barest  subsistence. 

The  effect  of  labor-saving  machinery  in 
Eimland  cannot  be  better  described  than  in  Me- 

o 

Kenzie’s  History  of  the  Nineteenth  Century: 
‘‘The  power  loom  had  recently  entered  upon 
its  career,  and  the  poor  hand  loom  weaver  was 
called  to  take  his  first  step  in  his  downward 
progress.  Long  years  of  suffering  followed  to 
tliose  whose  fortunes  were  embarked  in  this 
sinking  ship.  The  hungry  weavers  invoked  the 
help  of  parliament.  They  begged  to  be  sent  to 
Canada.  They  proposed  that  the  terrible  power 
loom  be  restrained  by  law,  and  when  that  was 
denied  them  they  rose  in  their  despair  and  law¬ 
lessly  overthrew  the  machines  which  were  de¬ 
vouring  the  bread  of  their  children.  They 
craved  that  a  legal  minimum  of  wages  should 
l)e  fixed  adequate  for  the  maintenance  of  a  fam¬ 
ily.  Unfortunately  it  was  beyond  human  power 
to  grant  their  prayer.  A  better  weaver  than 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


13 


they  had  risen.  The  hand  loom  had  to  be  put 
away  among  the  rubbish  of  the  past  and  the 
poor  workman  had  to  endure  a  life  of  ever  deep¬ 
ening  want  until  he  died.” 

It  is  asserted  by  those  best  qualified  to  judge 
that  the  condition  of  the  English  working  classes 
was  better  five  hundred  years  ago  than  it  is  to¬ 
day,  and  that  eight  hours  was  then  a  working 
day.  Those  were  the  days  of  ^‘Merrie  England” 
— a  name  which  sounds  like  mockery  in  mod¬ 
ern  times. 

In  the  United  States  the  condition  of  our 
working  classes  has  been  growing  worse  for 
years,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  labor  saving  inven¬ 
tions  within  the  last  two  decades  there  has  been 
no  substantial  diminution  of  the  hours  of  la¬ 
bor  during  all  that  time,  and  the  struggle  for 
existence  has  become  fiercer  than  before.  And 
instead  of  looking  into  the  future  with  hope  our 
wmrking  classes  are  often  advised  that  thei’e  is 

nothing  in  store  for  them  but  despair. 

‘‘The  American  laborer  must  make  up  his 
mind,  henceforth,  not  to  be  so  much  better  off 
than  the  European  laborer.  Men  must  be  con¬ 
tent  to  work  for  low  wages.  In  this  way,  the 
workingman  will  be  nearer  to  that  station  of 


14 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


life  to  wliicli  it  lias  pleased  God  to  call  him.” — 
New  York  World. 

I  hail  the  advent  of  inventions  and  labor 
saving  machinery.  I  shall  endeavor  to  show 
how  they  can  be,  made  an  unalloyed  blessing  to 
all  mankind.  But  now  they  mainly  serve  to 
broaden  the  chasm  between  the  rich  and  poor. 

(3nr  indnstrial  system  is  founded  upon  the 
theory  that  wages  and  prices  always  are  and 
should  be  fixed  by  the  competition  of  workman 
with  workman, c  and  employer  with  employer. 
In  other  words  by  the  supposed  law  of  supply 
and  demand.  I  shall  sometimes  refer  to  this  as 
the  "‘Competitive  System.”  But  where  combi¬ 
nation  is  possible,  which  is  now  the  case  wdth 
nearly  every  industry  bnt  agriculture,  competi¬ 
tion  will  eventually  disappear.  The  prices  of  more 
than  fifty  of  onr  principal  products  are  fixed,  not 
by  the ‘‘sacred  law  of  competition,”  bnt  by  com¬ 
binations  of  capitalists,  and  the  extension  of  this 
combination  principle  to  nearly  everything  else 
we  buy  seems- to  be  only  a  question  of  time. 

The  price  of  lumber,  coal,  oil,  barbed  wire, 
iron,  .steel,  nails  and  glass,  down  to  wall  paper. 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION.  Ip 


scdiool  books,  matches  and  carpet  tacks,  are  fixed 
by  combinations  of  the  capitalists  who  mine  or 
mannfHcture  them.  Supply  and  demand  haye 
little  to  do  with  the  price.  A  combination  of 
capitalists  can  and  frequently  do  fix  the  price 
in  defiance  of  the  so-called  law  of  supply  and 
demand,,, and  independent  of  the  cost  of  produc¬ 
tion.  .  ,  f  .  ’  A  .  -t.  , 

bf  okloup;  aero  ten  members  of  the  anthracite 
coal,  combination  met  at  a  wine  supper  in.  the 
city  pf  ^^ew  York  and,  while  tlioiisands  of  their 


-fellow  citizeps  were  shivering  to  keep  Avarni  or 
lauft'ering  for  lack  of  proper  -food,  they  deliber¬ 
ately  decided  to  advance  the  price  of  anthracite 
coal  twenty-five,  cents  %  ton,  which  will  be  an 
increased  burdeir  on  consumers  of  eio-ht  million 
dollars.  They  also  deeidqddp  jimitdbe  p 
dionior ,  the .  yenr  ? 1880  dp,  thirty-five  millipjptons 
,and  to  qdvancB  the-iprice-one  dollar  a’  toiir  later 
dll  thei  seasoiw :  This  xvill  unake  an  additional 


tribute  of  '  at  least  ■  twerity-five  million  dollars 
■'le\ded  on  the' coal  cohsutners  of  this  country  by 
ten  of  r  our  private ,  fellow  citizens.  Such'  a 
power  exerted  "by  congress  with  as  little  cause 


‘pvouldi  drive  dhe  .people  into ,  a  revolution,  but 


16 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


when  exercised  by  a  few  of  our  fellow  citizens 
we  submit  without  a  murmur.  And  yet  with 
all  their  exorbitant  profits,  tliese  coal  corpora¬ 
tions  pay  their  miners  hardly  enough  wages  to 
keep  soul  and  body  together. 

When  such  combinations  fix  the  wages  of 
their  employes,  the  workmen  might  almost  as 
well  expect  to  roll  back  the  ocean  tide  as  to  suc¬ 
ceed  in  a  strike  for  higher  wages  with  their  em¬ 
ployers  all  combined  against  them.  The  south¬ 
ern  slave  was  hardly  more  completely  in  the 
power  of  his  master  than  the  northern  laborers 
often  are  under  the  control  of  railroads,  and 
great  mining  and  manufacturing  corporations, 
which  are  without  even  the  motive  of  self  in¬ 
terest  to  make  them  give  a  thought  about  the 
condition  of  their  servants. 

When  a  man  is  compelled  to  toil  from  morn¬ 
ing  till  night  all  the  year  round  for  a  bare  sub¬ 
sistence,  is  he  not  in  reality  a  slave?  And  when 
almost  upon  his  bended  knees,  he  begs  a  capi¬ 
talist  to  give  him  work  to  keep  soul  and  body 
together,  is  he  not  worse  than  a  slave,  whose 
master’s  interest  if  not  humanity  would  not  al¬ 
low  to  perish  ? 

A  large  proportion  of  the  southern  negroes 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


17 


had  better  food,  better  clotlies,  better  accomnio- 
dations  and  an  easier  lot  before  the  war  than 
they  have  to-day.  The  southern  planter  can 
often  hire  his  labor  for  less  than  it  actnally  cost 
him  to  keep  his  slaves  in  good  condition.  I 
trust  that  I  do  not  underestimate  the  importance 
of  the  step  that  struck  off  the  fetters  of  the 
slave  but  we  must  not  forget  that,  to  a  great  ex¬ 
tent,  one  kind  of  slavery  has  been  replaced  by 
another  often  little  better  than  its  predecessor. 

The  principal  difference  between  the  condi¬ 
tion  of  the  southern  negroes  to-day  and  twenty- 
five  years  ago  is  that  although  the  great  majority 
of  them  work  just  as  hard  and  worry  more,  and 
live  little  if  any  better  than  they  did  then,  yet 
they  now  have  to  a  limited  extent  the  power  to 
chose  whom  they  will  serve.  And  instead  of 
the  master  tying  his  slave  to  a  whipping  post, 
as  employer  he  merely  discharges  his  servant 
and  allows  him  to  starve  if  he  cannot  find  em¬ 
ployment  elsewhere. 

This  was  well  expressed  by  Hazzard  in  his 
confidential  circular  to  American  bankers  in 
1862:  ‘‘Slavery  is  likely  to  be  abolished  by  the 
war  power,  and  chattel  slavery  to  be  destroyed. 


18 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


This  I  and  my  European  friends  are  in  favor  of, 

.  for  slavery  is  bnt  the  owino*  of  laboivand  carries 
witli  it  to  care  for  the  laborer,  while  the  EnrOr 
pean  plan,  led  by  England,  is  capital  control  of 
labor  by  controlling  wages..’ b. 

The  regulation  of  prices  and  ^yages  by  com"^' 
petition  is  a  wretched  principle.  The  simple- 
minded  but  all  wise  political  economist  would 
have  us  believe  that  there  is  ho  necessary  coflict 
between  labor  and  capital  under  the  competitive 
system.  Because,  forsooth,  capital  is  but  ac¬ 
cumulated  labor,  and  hence  they  are  one  and 
the  same  thinor  and  their  anterests  are  identical. 
As  if  it  is  to  the  employer’s  interest  to  pay  his 
workmen  the  highest  wages  he  can  possibly 
afford,  or  to  the  workman’s  interest  to  toil  for 
tlie  least  possible  reward!  Such  is  the  wisdom 
of  the  college  professors  who  charitably  under¬ 
take  to  enlighten  the  children  of  this  Igenera- 
tion  upon  the  science  of  wealth!  ‘^Siirely  of 
all  blockheads  the  scholar  is  worst!”  If  the 
world  would  only  continue  to  move  on  in  its  ac¬ 
customed  orbit  around  the  sun,  and  the  politi¬ 
cal  economkt  could  be  relieved  for  a  time  of 
his  arduous  responsibility  of  regulating. its  mo- 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


19 


tions,  and  would  then  go  to  work  in  the  Penn¬ 
sylvania  coal '..mines  and  receive  from  fifty  to  • 
seventy-five  cents  per  day,  out  of  which  to  sup¬ 
port  himself  and  family,  he  might'  then  return 
to  his  post  of  duty,  a  sadder  and  a  wiser  man ; 
and,  pei-adventnre,  if  he  were  not  a  political 
economist  he  might  have  a  dim  suspicion  that 
the  interests  of  coal'  syndicates  and  their  miners 
are  not  altogether  the  same.  But  being  a  po¬ 
litical  economist,  his  malady  is  incurable. 

It  takes  the  average  political  economists 
years  to  grasp  an  idea,  which  they  then  continue 
to  teach  long  after  it  has  been  exploded;  so  we 
need  not  expect  them  to  discover  that  there  is 
anything  wrong  with  the  competitive  system 
until  another  has  been  successfully  introduced 
and  the  present  generation  of  political  econo¬ 
mists  dies  off,  to  the  commonwealth’s  great  re¬ 
lief. 

Under  the  competitive  system,  when  com¬ 
petition  really  exists,  the  employer  who  can  use 
degraded  foreign  labor,  will,  other  things  being 
equal,  inevitably  supplant  him  who  pays  his 
employes  good  wages.  We  can  legislate  against 
pools  and  combinations  to  regulate  prices,  but 


20 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


even  if  we  could  enforce  such  laws  they  would 
only  affect  the  prices  paid  by  the  consumers 
and  would  serve  to  lower  the  wages  paid  by  em¬ 
ployers  to  their  workmen.  It  is  regarded  as 
impracticable  if  not  impossible  under  the  com¬ 
petitive  system  to  regulate  by  law  the  rate  of 
wages.  When  competition  actually  exists  it  is 
an  absolute  necessity  for  an  employer  to  pay 
his  workmen  the  lowest  wages  they  can  possi¬ 
bly  be  made  to  take,  or  his  business  will  go  to 
employers  who  will.  '  It  is  not  the  fault  of  the 
capitalist,  it  is  the  fault  of  the  competitive  sys¬ 
tem.  We  would  be  compelled  to  do  the  same 
thino;  under  similar  circumstances.  No  one 
can  be  expected  to  bankrupt  himself  by  paying 
higher  wages  than  his  competitor.  A  commer¬ 
cial  industry  is  not  a  charitable  institution. 

There  is  no  use  in  abusing  our  Goulds  and 
Vanderbilts.  They  are  merely  the  legitimate 
outcome  of  our  industrial  system.  If  they  had 
never  lived  their  present  positions  would  have 
been  filled  by  other  men.  They  have  done  lit¬ 
tle  if  any  worse  than  the  majority  of  mankind 
would  have  tried  to  do  if  in  their  place.  No 
individuals  nor  corporations  are  responsible  for 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


21 


the  wrongs  of  onr  working  classes.  Our  in¬ 
dustrial  system  is  alone  to  blame.  The  million¬ 
aire  is  as  much  the  product  of  our  industrial 
system  as  is  the  tramp  and  the  one  deserves  no 
more  abuse  than  the  other. 

Every  individual  pursues  substantially  the 
same  business  methods  employed  by  the  mil¬ 
lionaires  and  corporations,  hut  the  evils  are  not 
so  apparent  as  on  a  larger  scale.  As  individ¬ 
uals  we  employ  laborers  at  the  least  possible 
price  and  discharge  them  with  or  without  cause 
and  we  sell  our  products  and  property  for  as 
much  as  we  can.  And  these  are  the  practices 
of  the  corporations  of  which  we  so  bitterly 
complain. 

Under  the  present  system  pools  and  combi¬ 
nations  of  railroads  and  mining  and  manufactur¬ 
ing  corporations  seem  an  absolute  necessity. 
Competition  means  ruin.  If  they  compete  in 
earnest  they  will  virtually  cut  each  other’s 
throats.  A  railroad  war  is  a  good  example  of 
the  effect  of  competition.  The  railroads  then 
carry  passengers  and  freight  for  only  a  fraction 
of  the  actual  cost.  Every  stockholder  would 
be  ruined  if  the  fight  continued.  Uo  one  would 


22 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


buy  stock  nor  help  to  build  new  railroads  unless 
the  different  competing  roads  were  allowed  to 
combine  and  establish  a  uniform  rate.  Manu¬ 
factories  too  would  destroy  each  other  did  they 
not  combine  on  prices. 

Laws  and  gifts  have  been  made  to  encourage 
competition  and  prevent  pools  and  combina¬ 
tions  amono;  railroads,  but  all  in  vain.  Enor- 
mous  amounts  of  money  and  land  were  given  to 
the  various  Pacific  Poads  in  liopes  that  compe¬ 
tition  would  ensue.  But  the  result  has  been 
that  pools  or  combinations  are  almost  invariably 
formed  and  with  occasional  spasmodic  excep¬ 
tions,  competition  is  unknown. 

Canada  is  repeating  our  own  experience. 
Millions  of  dollars  were  voted  to  the  Canadian 
Pacific  Paihvay  under  the  express  provision  that 
no  arrangements  should  be  made  with  the  Grand 
Trunk  Company  as  to  freight  and  passenger 
traffic.  The  companies  now  claim  to  have  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  evading  that  provision  and  it  is  prob¬ 
ably  only  a  question  of  time  when  both  roads 
will  pass  under  the  same  management. 

It  is  a  common  thing  for  people  to  vote  aid 
to  railways,  expecting  to  get  the  benefit  of  com- 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


23 


peting  rates.  In  reference  to  sncli  practices 
President  J.  J.  Hill  said  in  a  recent  address: 
“I  think  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  there  is  not 
an  instance  in  tlie  entire  state  (Minnesota)  where 
the  competing  lines  so  bnilt  have  not  been 
bought  lip  by  the  stronger  roads  in  self  defense, 
or  an  agreement  to  maintain  rates  made  by  both 
parties.  In  the  nature  of  things  this  could  not 
he  otherwise.  Were  it  not  so  railroads  would 
go  on  and  destroy  each  other  and  the  owners 
would  soon  be  bankrupt.” 

Laws  and  constitutions  forbidding  the  con¬ 
solidation  of  competing  lines  have  been  passed, 
bnt  all  in  vain.  The  only  effect  such  provis¬ 
ions  have  is  to  render  railroad  management 
more  expensive  to  the  people  by  nominally  com- 
plying  with  the  law,  while  in  reality  violating 
it.  Under  such  legislation  when  a  railroad  pur¬ 
chases  a  competing  line,  instead  of  reducing 
expenses  by  consolidating  both  roads  under  the 
same  management,  the  purchased  road  must  be 
managed  under  a  separate  organization. 

It  is  so  plain  that  a  wayfaring  man,  though 
a  fool,  should  see  that  without  a  radical  change 
in  our  industrial  system,  the  future  of  our  work- 


24 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


ing  classes  is  dark  indeed.  Though  railroad, 
ininino:  and  manufacturino;  coinhinations  can 
arbitrarily  raise  prices  irrespective  of  the  cost  of 
transportation  or  production,  and  in  detiance  of 
the  supposed  law  of  supply  and  demand,  yet  it 
is  impossible  and  impracticable  to  prohibit  such 
combinations  or  materially  mitigate  their  abuse; 
and  thus  consumers  as  well  as  employes  are  at 
the  mercy  of  such  combinations. 

The  great  monopolies  granted  by  the  English 
crown  were  harmless  and  insignificant  compared 
with  the  gigantic  combinations  of  the  present 
acre.  These  mammoth  consolidations  have  been 
principally  brought  about  within  the  past  fifteen 
years,  and  if  the  system  advances  as  rapidly  for 
fifteen  years  more,  God  alone  knows  what  the 
end  will  be. 

Centralization  and  combination  are  going  on 
with  every  kind  of  capital  that  employs  labor. 
The  small  manufacturer  must  combine  with 
others  or  go  to  the  wall.  The  small  railroad 
falls  into  the  clutches  of  the  great.  Even  the 
owner  of  a  small  coal  mine  or  oil  well  must  sell 
out  to  the  great  rival  corporations  or  be  ruined. 

The  Western  Union  Company  monopolizes 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


25 


almost  the  entire  telegraph  business  of  the 
country  and  is  built  upon  the  ruins  of  countless 
smaller  corporations. 

Nine  combinations  virtually  control  the  en¬ 
tire  railroad  business  of  the  United  States. 
Within  the  past  fifteen  years  our  railways  have 
been  so  consolidated  that  an  independent  short 
line  is  now  almost  unknown.  With  every  new 
combination  competition  is  rendered  still  more 
difficult. 

During  the  past  ten  years  three  hundred 
railroads,  with  a  total  length  of  nearly  thirty 

thousand  miles,  have  been  sold  under  foreclosure 
and  passed  under  new  management.  In  1885 

forty  different  railroads  were  in  the  hands  of 
receivers.  Few  get  out  of  the  possession  of  the 
courts  without  falling  into  the  clutches  of  their 
rivals.  The  West  Shore  E-ailroad,  that  cost  its 
projectors  one  hundred  and  fourteen  million 
dollars,  has  recently  passed  under  the  complete 
control  of  its  rival,  the  New  York  Central. 

At  the  present  rate  it  will  be  but  a  very  few 
years  until  the  entire  railway  system  of  the 
United  States  will  be  under  one  management. 


26 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


Expenses  could  then  he  enormously  reduced. 
Millions  of  dollars  could  be  annually  saved  in 
almost  every  direction  and  competition  and  rate 
cutting  would  become  nnhnown.  These  are  the 
reasons  that  have  produced  the  present  consoli- 
rlations  and  will  continue  to  operate  until  all  onr 
railroads  are  controlled  by  a  single  manage¬ 
ment. 

Already  in  some  of  onr  eastern  states  asso¬ 
ciations  have  been  incorporated  to  manage  ex¬ 
tensive  railway  systems.  Such  a  corporation 
buys  up  a  majority  of  the  stock  of  the  different 
roads  it  wishes  to  operate  and  thus  obtains  com¬ 
plete  control,  prevents  all  competition  and  re¬ 
duces  the  managing  and  operating  expenses. 
There  is  no  reason  whatever  why  a  single  corpo¬ 
ration  should  not  eventually  be  formed  for  the 
management  of  the  entire  railway  system  of  the 
United  States,  with  all  the  present  laws  still 
in  force  against  the  consolidation  of  competing 
lines.  Competition  would  be  rendered  impossi. 
ble,  for  no  set  of  men  would  ever  undertake  to 
compete  with  a  corporation  of  such  gigantic 
wealth.  Such  an  organization  could  easily  raise 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


27 


any  anionnt  of  money  and  conld  obtain  complete 
control  of  every  legislature  in  tlie  land.  Sncli 
a  project  looks  like  a  gigantic  undertaking,  bnt 
under  the  present  industrial  system  its  acconi- 
plisliment  is  only  a  question  of  a  very  few  years’ 
time. 

This  centralization  of  capital  will  not  stop 
with  onr  railroads,  telegraphs,  mines  and  nian- 
nfactiires,  bnt  as  certain  as  fate  will  eventually 
take  possession  of  onr  farins. 

There  are  as  many  tenants  in  the  United 
States  to-day  as  there  are  in  Great  Britian  and 
Ireland.  The  last  census  reveals  the  fact  that 
less  than  three-fonrths  of  onr  farmers  own  the 
soil  they  cultivate.  Many  of  them  are  so 
deeply  in  debt  that  they  might  as  well  be  ten¬ 
ants.  This  change  in  the  ownership  of  onr  soil 
is  going  on  with  snch  alarming  speed  that  the 
next  generation  of  American  farmers  will  be 
chiefly  tenants  if  not  worse. 

The  last  U.  S.  Census  shows  a  remarkable 
decrease  in  the  number  of  small  farms,  and  an 
amazing  increase  in  the  number  and  size  of 
large  ones  for  the  previous  decade. 


28 


THE  PEOPLE’S  PROBLEM 


TABLE  SHOWING  COMPARATIVE  SIZE  AND  NUMBER 

OF  FARMS. 


1870. 

18£0; 

RATIO  OF  DECREASE. 

finder  8  acres . 

0,857 

172,021 

294,607 

847,614 

754,221 

565,054 

15,873 

3,720 

4,352 

134,889 

254,749 

781,474 

1,032,910 
1,695,983 
1:  75,972 
8,578 

37  per  cent. 

21  “  “ 

14  “  “ 

8  “ 

Ratio  of  Increase. 

37  per  cent. 

200  “  “ 

379  “  “ 

668  “  “ 

3  to  10  “  . 

10  to  20  “  . 

20  to  50  “  . 

50  to  100  acres . 

100  to  500  ‘  . 

500  to  1,000  “  . 

Over  l.OOO  “  . 

The  most  remarkable  feature  about  this 
table  is  the  uniform  fact  that  the  smaller  the 
farms  the  more  rapidly  have  they  decreased, 
and  the  larger  the  farms  the  faster  they  have 
increased.  Farms  under  3  acres  decreased  37 
per  cent,  and  those  exceeding  1,000  acres 
increased  nearly  700  per  cent. 

In  Dakota  there  are  single  farms  containing 
fifty  square  miles.  These  western  “  Bonanza 
Farms  ”  are  the  first  instances  in  which  acfri- 
culture  has  been  carried  on  in  a  thoroughly 

economic  and  systematic  manner. 

The  machinery  and  all  other  supplies  are 

bought  in  large  quantities  and  at  great  dis¬ 
counts  from  the  ordinary  prices.  Every 
machine  is  run  to  its  full  capacity  and  thus 
accomplishes  far  more  than  in  the  hands  of  a 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


29 


small  farmer.  Everything  is  done  in  sncli  a 
methodical  manner  that  the  exact  cost  of  a 
meal  for  a  man  or  a  feed  for  a  horse  is  known 
to  a  fraction  of  a  cent.  As  soon  as  the  season’s 
work  is  over  all  the  men  are  discharged  except 
enough  to  care  for  the  stock.  There  are  no 
superflnons  wives  and  children  to  support. 

It  is  nnnecessary  to  spend  thonsands  of  dol¬ 
lars  in  houses,  barns,  fences  and  other  improve¬ 
ments  on  every  one  hnndred  and  sixty  acres  of 
land.  A  cheap  boarding  house  is  erected  to 
accommodate  the  men  employed,  and  a  farm  of 
thonsands  of  acres  can  be  manacled  with- 
ont  mnch  more  outlay  for  improvements  than 
an  eastern  farmer  would  make  on  an  eighty  acre 
lot.  In  every  way  the  bonanza  farmer  has  the 
advantage,  and  can  profitably  sell  his  grain  at 
prices  which  would  starve  his  small  competitor 
to  death.  Some  of  ns  are  likely  to  see  the  day 
when  a  whole  county  will  not  be  large  enough 
for  a  single  farm.  A  business  that  offers  sncli 
a  sure  return  as  agriculture,  will  not  much 
longer  keep  out  of  the  reach  of  capital.  Even 
if  ‘‘  bonanza  farming  ”  were  not  a  success  at 
present,  labor-saving  machinery  would  soon 


30 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


make  it  possible.  Steam  plows  and  harrows, 
and  seeders,  and  self-binders,  and  corn  buskers, 
and  stackers,  and  threshing-machines,  will  soon 
teach  capitalists  that  the  best  returns  from  agri¬ 
culture  will  be  from  fields  containing  square 
miles  instead  of  acres. 

With  us,  wholesale  and  tenant  farming  are 
in  their  infancy,  but  it  appears  to  be  only  a 
question  of  time  under  the  present  industrial 
system  when  our  small  farmers  will  fall  into  the 
clutches  of  great  landlords  or  bonanza  farmers. 
Laws  may  delay  but  will  not  prevent  this 
result.  We  may  legislate  against  foreign  land 
owners,  but  native  landlords  are  little  better. 
The  prospect  before  our  farmers’  children  is 
indeed  a  gloomy  one,  but  we  must  not  close  our 
eyes  to  what  appears  to  be  inevitable  unless  our 
industrial  system  be  reformed. 

Our  merchants  need  not  expect  to  escape 
the  common  tendency  of  the  age.  The  retail 
trade  of  the  United  States  offers  a  more  invit¬ 
ing  field  for  capitalists  than  mines,  manufac¬ 
tures  or  railroads.  One  large  store  could  easily 
do  the  business  of  many  small  ones.  When 
combinations  obtain  complete  control  of  the 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


31 


railroads  and  manufactures,  they  could  conduct 
the  retail  trade  of  this  country  at  infinitely  less 
than  the  present  expense.  They  would  need 
no  wholesale  stores  nor  compete! ng  clerks  and 
salesmen.  They  need  not  employ  one-lifth  the 
amount  of  capital  that  our  competing  trades¬ 
men  now  invest  in  merchandise  and  business 
blocks.  They  could  save  three-fourths  of  the 
hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  which  our 
middlemen  pay  annually  for  rents,  interest, 
insurance,  salaries,  advertising  and  other  expen¬ 
ses.  They  could  sell  their  goods  for  cash  and 
thus  save  the  enormous  amounts  of  money  now 
lost  by  trusting  dishonest  or  unfortunate  mer¬ 
chants  and  customers.  They  could  render 
competition  impossible.  They  could  pay  their 
clerks  merely  enough  to  enable  them  to  drag 
out  a  miserable  existence  and  rendei*  their  life 
as  wretched  and  their  future  as  hopeless  as 
that  of  a  workman  in  a  great  factory. 

This  may  look  like  a  dark  picture,  but 
already  its  shadow  is  on  the  wall.  In  Great 
Britain  nearly  all  the  public  houses  are  con¬ 
trolled  by  the  great  brewers.  A  single  corpoi’a- 


32 


THE  PEOPLE  S  PROBLEM 


tioii  supplies  food  and  drink  to  all  railway 
passengers. 

In  onr  own  country  tlie  'bntclier  shops  in 
onr  large  cities  are  rapidly  passing  into  the 
hands  of  a  combination  of  dressed  beef  corpo¬ 
rations,  who  possess  such  advantages  in  the  way 
of  production  and  transportation  that  they  can 
render  competition  impossible.  The  movement 
has  already  obtained  a  tirin  foothold,  and  the 
more  rapidly  manufacturing  is  consolidated  the 
easier  will  it  be  to  monopolize  onr  retail  trade. 
The  next  few  years  are  liable  to  witness  wonder¬ 
ful  strides  in  this  direction  for  the  movement 
has  barely  begnn. 

As  the  great  mannfactnring  establishments 
have  replaced  the  little  workshops  of  the  past, 
so  the  great  bazaars  of  the  future  conld  take  the 
place  of  onr  small  retail  stores  and  our  mer¬ 
chants  could  be  replaced  by  the  future  ill-paid 
clerks,  just  as  easily  as  the  independent  smith 
and  weaver  of  the  past  have  been  succeeded  by 
the  helpless  employes  of  the  present. 

Such  is  the  inherent  tendency  to  centraliza-' 
tion  and  combination  that  exists  in  every  indus¬ 
try  that  furnishes  support  for  man.  We  can 


man. 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


33 


no  more  prevent  it  under  the  present  indnstrial 
system  than  we  can  stop  tlie  motion  of  tlie 
earth. 

Snell  is  the  dismal  future  tliat  stares  into 
the  face  of  every  thoucylitful  farmer,  merchant 
and  workincrinan. 

O 

Under  the  present  arrangement  of  things 
a  few  banks  on  Wall  street  could  combine  and 
create  a  panic.  They  can  lock  up  their  money 
in  their  vaults,  and  throw  half  our  business 
men  into  bankruptcy.  It  may  not  now  be  to 
their  own  advantao'e  to  take  such  a  course,  but 
if  they  actually  have  the  power  of  doing  so  we 
can  not  tell  when  their  self  interest  may  make 

ft' 

them  exercise  it.  A  few  railroads  or  manufac¬ 
turers  or  mining  corporations  can  cut  down 
their  workmen’s  wages  or  close  their  works,  and 
draff  hnndreds  of  thousands  of  workinff’inen  to 
the  verge  of  starvation.  Such  corporations 
cannot  always  be  blamed  for  doing  so,  for  it  is 

often  necessary  to  take  such  a  course  in  order 

«/ 

to  exist  under  the  terrible  waste  and  extrava¬ 
gance  of  our  competitive  industrial  system. 
But  it  must  make  angels  weep  and  devils  blush 
with  shame,  to  see  society  in  this  enlightened 


34 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


age,  allow  a  few  of  its  own  members  to  lawfully 
exercise  more  power  over  tlieir  fellow  citizens, 
than  a  single  king  in  Europe  dare  exert  over 
the  meanest  of  liis  subjects. 

And  yet  this  is  what  the  schoolmaster  polit¬ 
ical  economist  tells  us  is  the  science  of  produc- 
iim  Wealth  !  Rather  its  name  should  be  the 
science  of  producing  Poverty,  Ignorance,  Drunk¬ 
enness,  Insanity  and  Crime  !  It  is  the  doctrine 
of  selfishness  and  the  gospel  of  dirt.  It  is  a 
disgrace  to  Christianity  and  civilization. 

And  yet  the  most  powerful  nations  of 
Europe  are  continually  waging  war  with  the 
heathen  peoples  of  the  earth,  to  compel  them  to 
accept  the  benign  influences  of  the  so-called 
enlightened  civilization  of  this  glorious  nine¬ 
teenth  century  ! 

The  competitive  system  is  the  most  plan¬ 
less  and  chaotic,  unorganized  and  unscientific, 
and  the  most  wasteful  and  extravacrant  that  the 

O 

world  has  ever  seen.  A  large  portion  of  the 
year  many  of  our  manufactories  are  closed  or 
work  on  half  time.  If  half  our  furnaces  were 
out  of  blast  and  half  our  iron  mills  closed,  the 
other  half  could  easily  supply  the  demand  with- 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


35 


ont  materially  adding  to  tlieir  cost.  'And  yet 
the  prices  of  their  products  are  fixed  so  high 
that  these  useless  mills  and  furnaces  and  factories 
pay  a  handsome  profit  to  their  owners.  A  combi¬ 
nation  of  manufacturers  annually  paid  the  Vul¬ 
can  Mills,  of  St.  Louis,  four  hundred  thousand 
dollars  for  several  years,  merely  to  keep  closed 
and  not  produce  a  single  article,  although  those 
mills  had  a  magnilicent  natural  location  and 
could  probably  have  conducted  the  business  at 
a  lower  cost  than  any  of  the  others.  But  the 
public  were  thus  taxed  5^400,000  a  year  to  put 
into  the  pockets  of  a  manufacturer  who  did  not 
give  a  thing  to  the  public  in  return,  nor  pay  a 
single  dollar  of  that  enormous  subsidy  to  the 
workmen  he  threw  out  of  employment.  Such 
practices  are  frequent.  The  whisky  pool  pays 
some  of  its  distilleries  ^500  a  day  for  lying  idle, 
and  most  combinations  allow  their  members 
to  run  their  manufactories  but  a  portion  of 
the  time. 

Free  Trade  might  for  a  time  prevent  such 
outrages  on  the  public,  but  when  onr  manufac¬ 
turers  can  combine  for  such  purposes  all  over 
the  three  million  square  miles  of  the  LTnited 


SG 


THE  PEOPLE^S  PROBLEM 


States,  it  would  be  an  easy  matter  at  the  proper 
time  to  include  ill  the  combiiiatioii  that  little 
English  isle  across  the  sea  containing  only  a 
few  thousand  square  miles.  More  money  can 
be  made  by  combination  than  by  competition, 
and  the  manufacturers  of  Europe  will  profit  by 
the  American  example.  The  same  causes  that 
have  operated  throughout  the  United  States  in 
liringing  about  tlie  present  effects  will,  after 
tariff  restrictions  are  removed,  eventually  oper¬ 
ate  throughout  the  world  and  produce  the  same 
results.  II 11111  an  selfishness  and  business  prin¬ 
ciples  will  not  change  when  tariff  barriers  are 
removed.  Under  the  present  industrial  system 
no  important  and  lasting  benefit  will  result 
from  free  trade.  Instead  of  giving  to  our  own 
manufacturers  the  profits,  we  would  under  free 
trade  divide  them  with  the  world. 

The  same  appalling  extravagance  and  waste 
exists  ainono;  our  railroads  as  in  our  manufac- 
tories.  Look  at  the  useless  Uickle  Plate  Pail- 
road  built  at  a  cost  of  fifty  million  dollars,  only 
to  sell  out  to  the  owners  of  a  rival  competing 
route  who  did  not  need  the  road,  but  were  com¬ 
pelled  to  buy  it  or  compete  or  pool  with  it,  and 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


37 


found  it  more  profitable  to  buy  the  thing,  use¬ 
less  as  it  was,  and  make  the  public  pay  for  it. 
Look  at  the  West  Shore  Railroad,  which  was 
built  up  the  Hudson  river  and  across  the  State 
of  Hew  York  nearly  all  the  way  in  sight  of 
another  road  that  could  have  easily  done  all  the 
business  with  scarcely  any  additional  expense. 
Where  is  there  a  single  road  that  could  not  easily 
do  twice  its  present  business  at  but  a  trifling 
extra  cost?  The  country  is  full  of  useless  rail¬ 
roads  that  are  built,  not  to  satisfy  the  legitimate  * 
demands  of  commerce,  but  either  for  speculative 
purposes,  or  to  share  the  traffic  of  existing  roads 
that  could  easily  supply  the  public  wants.  And 
yet  the  public  are  taxed  so  as  to  yield  a  hand¬ 
some  profit  on  useless  as  well  as  useful  roads, 
and  on  nearly  four  billion  dollars  of  watered 
stock  and  securities  besides.  In  order  that  a 
railroad  company  may  not  appear  to  pay  its 
stockholders  what  the  public  would  regard  as 
exorbitant  profits  it  issues  stock  or  bonds  to  its 
shareholders  for  nothing;  and  in  order  to  keep 
these  profits  down  to  an  apparently  harmless 
size  such  watered  stock  and  bonds  are  frequently 
issued  amounting  to  many  times  the  actul  cost 


38 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


of  the  road,  and  on  all  this  the  long  suffering  peo¬ 
ple  are  compelled  to  pay  dividends  or  interest; 
for  in  the  language  of  the  greatest  railroad  mag¬ 
nate  of  the  age,  “railroads  are  not  run  in  the 
interest  of  the  dear  public.” 

What  is  true  of  railroads  and  manufactories 
is  also  true  of  nearly  every  other  kind  of  busi¬ 
ness  in  which  private  corporations  or  individu¬ 
als  engage.  Everything  is  overdone,  and  waste- 
fnlly  and  extravagantly  done. 

How  many  retail  merchants  could  not  sell 
twice  their  present  amount  of  goods  without 
using  any  more  capital,  paying  any  more  insur¬ 
ance,  taxes  or  rent,  and  by  employing  very  lit¬ 
tle,  if  any,  additional  labor?  How  many  whole¬ 
sale  merchants  in  the  United  States  could  not 
do  live  times  their  present  business  without 
employing  another  traveling  salesman?  And 
yet  the  consumer  is  taxed  to  support  every  one 
of  these  superfluous  middlemen.  How  many 
lawyers,  or  doctors,  or  dentists,  or  tradesmen,  or 
agents  could  easily  do  twice  their  present  amount 
of  work  or  business?  How  many  banks  or  in¬ 
surance  companies  could  not  accommodate  twice 
the  number  of  patrons  they  do  now?  And  yet 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


39 


every  one  of  these  useless  factories,  railroads, 
telegraphs,  insurance  companies,  banks  and 
stores  and  useless  professional  men  of  all  kinds 
must  be  supported  by  each  other;  but  the  bur¬ 
den  at  last  falls  upon  the  farmer  and  the  labor¬ 
ing  man,  upon  whom  all  the  rest  of  us  directly 
or  indirectly  live. 

What  a  waste  of  people  and  capital  there  is 
in  the  arrangements  of  modern  society!  And 
vet  the  schoolmaster  tells  us  that  in  the  com- 
petitive  system  he  has  found  the  perfection  of 
political  economy.  But  it  might  better  be  called 
the  perfection  of  the  most  appalling  system  of 
public  extravagance  and  waste  of  labor  and  cap¬ 
ital  and  human  life  that  the  world  has  ever 
known. 

Thinking  men  are  rapidly  coming  to  the 
conclusion  that  under  the  present  industrial 
system  in  this  country  a  republican  form  of 
government  cannot  permanently  endure.  People 
are  rapidly  losing  confidence  in  our  city  councils, 
our  legislatures  and  the  administration  of  our 
criminal  laws.  The  public  fears  that  it  is  the 
case  of  the  people  and  their  common  sense  of 
justice  on  one  side,  and  wealth  and  corporate 


40 


THE  PEOPLE’S  PROBLEM 


interests  and  injustice  on  the  other,  and  that  the 
people’s  case  is  lost. 

In  our  wealthiest  states  and  cities  any  legisla¬ 
tion  adverse  to  railroads  and  wealthy  corpora¬ 
tions  can  seldom  prevail,  however  ]ust  it  may 
be. 

The  present  tendency  in  our  large  cities  is  to 
place  almost  the  entire  municipal  power  in  the 
hands  of  one  man  and  make  him  responsible  for 
its  use,  under  the  belief  that  divided  responsi¬ 
bility  is  no  responsibility  and  no  restraint.  The 
same  reasons  exist  for  doing  away  with  our 
state  lemslatures  as  our  boards  of  aldermen. 

O 

Bribery,  corruption  and  log-rolling  are  every¬ 
day  occurrences.  The  people  feel  that  their  law 
makers  are  for  sale.  There  is  hardly  a  single 
state  in  the  Union  in  whose  governor  the  people 
have  not  more  confidence  than  in  the  entire  leg¬ 
islature.  The  great  majority  of  thinking  men 
would  rather  risk  the  law-making  power  with  a 
governor  than  with  an  average  legislature;  for 
even  if  a  governor  should  be  dishonest,  it  costs 
less  to  support  one  rascal  than  many. 

Under  the  present  industrial  system  of  this 
commercial  age,  without  any  aristocratic  or 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


41 


other  important  element  in  society  beyond  the 
influence  of  money,  a  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  is  vanishing 
from  onr  land.  Under  the  system  that  places 
such  unlimited  and  despotic  power  in  the  hands 
of  private  capital,  representative  government 
has  already  proved  a  failure,  and  the  tendency 
is  for  the  one  man  power  to  take  its  place. 

The  present  industrial  system  tends  to  crush 
out  of  our  nature  everything  that  is  noble  and 
true.  All  that  nine-tenths  of  us  live  for  is  to 
buy  and  to  sell  and  to  get  gain.  Money-getting 
is  almost  the  sole  object  of  our  lives.  Our  high¬ 
est  ambition  is  not  the  greatest  amount  of  hap¬ 
piness,  but  the  biggest  pile  of  dollars.  Money 
is  no  longer  merely  the  means  of  life,  but  almost 
the  sole  object  of  life  itself.  It  is  a  selflsh  and 
a  commercial  age.  Everything  is  measured  by 
dollars  and  cents. 

The  flrst  question  that  a  young  man  now 
asks  in  choosing  his  life  work  is  not,  ^^Am  I 
best  fitted  for  it?”  but  ‘‘Can  I  make  the  most 
money  at  it?”  It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  see  a 
young  man  in  whom  slumbers  the  divine  spark 
of  genius,  prostitute  his  God-given  talents 


42 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


merely  to  make  money.  We  see  even  literature 
and  sculpture  and  painting  and  music  prosti¬ 
tuted  for  gold.  A  man’s  success  in  life  is  almost 
invariably  estimated  by  the  amount  of  money  he 
has  made.  We  often  look  down  upon  our  poets, 
our  statesmen,  our  philosophers,  our  inventors, 
our  successful  professional  men,  no  matter  how 
distinguished  and  able  they  may  otherwise  be, 
if  they  do  not  possess  the  faculty  of  money-get¬ 
ting. 

We  all  want  to  be  wealthy,  and  yet  it  is 
seldom  that  a  man  can  get  rich  except  by  culti¬ 
vating  the  meanest  qualities  in  his  nature.  He 
must  pay  his  workmen  tlie  least  they  will  take, 
and  compel  them  to  work  as  hard  as  they  can. 
lie  must  buy  everything  for  the  lowest  possible 
price  and  sell  for  the  highest.  He  must  over¬ 
reach  every  one  with  whom  he  deals.  He  must 
often  stop  his  ears  to  the  cry  of  others’  anguish. 
He  must  have  no  eye  to  pity,  nor  stretch  forth  a 
hand  to  save.  He  must  g^et  all  he  can  and  save 
all  he  gets.  He  must  work  like  a  slave  and 
often  deny  himself  and  family  the  ordinary  com¬ 
forts  and  conveniences  of  life. 

It  is  impossible  to  be  honest  and  succeed  in 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


43 


many  kinds  of  legitimate  enterprise.  A  man 
must  often  mannfactnre  poor  goods,  or  practice 
deception  in  Ins  business,  or  his  trade  may  go 
to  another.  He  must  usually  employ  the 
methods  of  his  competitors,  however  bad  they 
may  be.  All  the  demons  in  the  bottomless  pit 
combined  too-ether  could  not  have  invented  a 
more  nefarious  scheme  than  the  competitive 
industrial  system  for  crushing  out  of  our  nature 
everything  that  is  noble  and  true  and  making 

us  tit  only  for  eternal  torment  in  the  region  of 
the  damned. 

Gold,  many  hunted,  sweat  and  bled  for  p^old. 
Waked  all  the  night  and  labored  all  the  day; 

And  what  use  this  allurement,  dost  thou  ask? 

A  dust  dug  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth. 

Which  being  cast  into  the  hre,  came  out 
A  shining  thing  that  fools  admired  and  called 
A  god;  and  in  devout  and  humble  plight 
Before  it  kneeled  the  greater  to  the  less; 

And  on  its  altars  sacrificed  ease  and  peace, 

Truth,  faith,  integrity,  good  conscience,  friends. 
Love,  charity,  benevolence,  and  all 
The  sweet  and  tender  sympathies  of  life; 

And  to  complete  the  horrid,  murderous  rite, 

And  signalize  their  folly,  offered  up 
Their  souls  and  an  eternity  of  bliss. 

Thinking  men  are  coming  rapidly  to  the 
conclusion  that  there  is  something  radically 


U  THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 

wrong  in  the  present  organization  of  society 
that  permits  and  even  encourages  these  gigan¬ 
tic  evils.  They  feel  that  there  is  something 
rotten  in  a  condition  of  society  that  makes  its 
hardest-working  citizens  go  ragged  and  hungry 
because  there  is  too  much  to  eat  and  too  much 
to  wear.  They  see  that  the  laboring  man  has 
wrongs  that  must  be  righted;  that  society  is 
slumbering  in  the  pit  of  a  volcano  that  is  giving 
frequent  warnings  of  a  terrible  eruption;  that 
it  exists  all  over  the  civilized  world.  ISTihilists 
in  Russia,  Socialists  in  Germany  and  Austria, 
Communists  in  France  and  Belgium,  and  others 
here  and  elsewhere  are  waging  relentless  war 
against  the  present  industrial  system.  Many  of 
us  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  their  cries  for  help  because 
a  few  of  the  most  exasperated  agitators  resort  to 
violence  and  bloodshed.  But  every  man  has 
the  natural .  right  to  exist  and  to  acquire  the 
means  for  his  subsistence.  If  the  arrangements 
of  society  are  so  faulty  that  he  is  not  allowed  to 
earn  his  living,  we  must  expect  him  to  resort  to 
any  measures,  however  desperate,  rather  than 
starve.  It  is  a  crime  against  Almighty  God, 
that  in  this  land  of  peace  and  plenty,  there 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


45 


should  be  a  single  liiiinan  being  compelled  to 
live  ill  poverty,  wretchedness  and  vice.  Can  yon 
wonder  that  the  victims  of  such  an  industrial 
system  will  sell  their  votes  for  bread?  Can 
yon  wonder  that  they  should  assassinate  Czars 
and  Emperors,  and  blow  np  Houses  of  Parlia¬ 
ment,  and  wage  relentless  war  with  dynamite? 

Instead  of  doing  so  little,  is  it  not  rather 
strange  that  the  working  classes,  with  all  the 
wrongs  and  outrages  that  have  been  heaped 
upon  them  until  they  can  bear  no  more,  have 
not  long  ago  utterly  destroyed  the  industrial 
system  that  permits  such  iniquities  to  be  heaped 
upon  the  weak  and  helpless?  What  seems  to 
be  most  surprising  is  that  they  have  peaceably 
endured  their  wrongs  so  long. 

Many  of  them  want  to  resort  to  the  sword 
and  fagot  and  dynamite,  and  shed  the  blood  of 
the  innocent  and  guilty.  And  they  will  do  it 
as  certain  as  there  is  a  God  in  Heaven,  unless 
we  right  their  wrongs. 

The  Pittsburg  and  Chicago  riots  gave  us  a 
feeble  indication  of  what  the  lower  classes  of 
America  could  do  if  they  only  would. 

If  the  wrono-s  of  the  workino;  classes  all  over 

O  O 


46 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


the  civilized  world  are  not  speedily  redressed 
and  their  sufferings  alleviated,  the  land  will  he 
drenched  with  blood  in  a  way  that  will  make 

t/ 

the  French  Itevolntion  mere  child’s  play  by  com¬ 
parison.  Onr  industrial  system  must  be  peace¬ 
ably  reformed  or  every  thing  that  has  been  ac¬ 
cumulated  and  accomplished  under  it  will  be 
forcibly  destroyed,  and  the  wheels  of  progress 
turned  back  for  years.  God  forbid  a  resort  to  force. 
But  if  the  innate  sense  of  justice  of  this  great  na¬ 
tion  will  not  right  their  wrongs  we  must  expect 
that  our  working  classes  will  eventually  resort 
to  force  Avhen  peaceful  measures  fail.  Kegret  it 
as  we  may  the  handwriting  is  on  the  wall  and  it 
behooves  us  to  read  and  understand.  The  world 
is  trembling  on  the  verge  of  the  bloodiest  revo¬ 
lution  that  time  has  ever  known. 


GURRRNT  SOIaUTIONS. 


II. 

The  different  remedies  suggested  for  the  im¬ 
provement  of  onr  industrial  system  are  as  numer¬ 
ous  as  its  evils. 

Enforced  prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic 
would  undoubtedly  improve  the  condition  of 
many  laboring  men.  But  the  average  wages  of 
our  working  classes  will  barely  provide  the  com¬ 
monest  necessities  of  life,  and  intemperance  there¬ 
fore  cannot  be  alone  to  blame.  There  is  also  an 
important  fact  which  is  often  overlooked.  Statis¬ 
tics  show  as  a  frequent  if  not  a  general  thing 
that  drunkenness  among  the  working  classes  is 
the  effect  and  not  the  cause  of  poverty.  They 
drink  to  forget  their  misery  and  remember  their 
poverty  no  more.  Even  if  the  liquor  traffic 
should  cease,  wages  would  not  be  raised,  and 
wage  receivers  therefore  would  be  almost  as 


48 


THE  PEOPLE’S  PROBLEM 


lielpless  and  dependent  as  before.  Those  who 
work  the  hardest  and  receive  the  most  wretched 
wages,  spend  little  for  driiik.  The  wages  of 
men  are  fifty  per  cent  higher  than  of  women, 
and  intemperance  among  the  latter  is  compara¬ 
tively  rare.  Surely  it  requires  some  other  rem¬ 
edy  than  prohibition  to  right  the  wrongs  of  la¬ 
bor  ! 

A  different  financial  policy  is  often  urged. 
A  more  liberal  coinage  of  silver  or  issue  of  green¬ 
backs  might  alleviate  the  situation  for  a  time 
but  could  give  no  permanent  relief.  The  pres¬ 
ent  system  of  distributing  the  fruits  of  labor 
would  remain  unchanged  and  the  extra  currency 
would  soon  follow  the  gold  into  the  coffers  of 
the  rich. 

It  is  often  said  that  we  should  manufacture 
fewer  products.  But  surely  there  can  not  be 
too  many  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  while  thous¬ 
ands  of  hard  working  citizens  are  suffering  for 
want  of  them.  “Over  production!”  That  men 
should  go  ragged  because  there  are  too  many 
clothes;  that  they  must  go  hungry  because  there 
is  too  much  food;  that  they  must  freeze  because 
there  is  too  much  coal!  The  trouble  is  not  in 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


49 


overproductioii,  but  in  a  wrong  system  of  distri¬ 
bution. 

Onr  wage  receivers  are  gi*avely  advised  to 
go  west  and  engage  in  fanning.  Bnt  few  of 
them  have  the  means  to  do  this  and  would  gain 
little  if  they  did;  for  the  lot  of  the  western  farm¬ 
er  is  not  to  be  desired.  Every  mechanic  who 
engages  in  farming  increases  the  already  snper- 
tlnons  farm  products,  and  lessens  the  demand 
for  them,  and  therefore  in  effect  works  an  injury 
against  the  farming  class. 

A  favorite  remedy  with  many  is  a  foreign 
market.  Bnt  surely  it  is  a  wrong  industrial 
system  that  requires  a  foreign  market  for  a 
country  with  so  many  natural  resources  as  our 
own.  As  if  we  could  not  live  in  comfort  if  this 
were  the  only  country  in  the  world,  but  that 
we  must  find  other  nations  with  whom  we  can 
traffic,  and  to  whom  we  can  sell  more  than  we 
buy!  We  sell  more  goods  abroad  today  than  ever, 
and  our  working  classes  are  worse  off  than  ,be- 
■fore.  A  foreign  market  that  would  require  the 
work  of  our  unemployed  would  give  temporary 
relief,  but  it  would  be  but  a  short  time  till  the 
supply  of  labor  again  exceeded  the  demand,  and 


50 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


tlie  striiofprle  for  existence  aniuiin  our  workino- 
classes  would  become  as  intense  as  ever. 

Free  trade  can  accomplish  little.  England 
has  free  trade  and  the  condition  of  her  people 
is  worse  than  ours.  The  best  effect  free  trade 
can  have  upon  the  working  classes  will  be  to 
lessen  the  cost  of  living.  But  the  capitalist 
will  then  be  able  to  control  labor  for  even  lower 
AV’ages  than  he  does  now.  It  is  an  undisputed 
fact  throughout  the  world  that  the  cheaper  the 
working  classes  live  the  lower  wages  they  are 
paid.  Under  the  present  industrial  system,  their 
wages  are  barely  above  the  cost  of  subsistence 
however  cheap  that  may  be. 

Protection  has  been  tried  a  (jiiarter  of  a  cen¬ 
tury,  and  the  condition  of  our  working  classes 
shows  that  some  other  remedy  must  be  sought. 

Peligion  and  morality  are  the  common  rem¬ 
edies  suggested  in  the  pulpit,  but  it  is  difficult 
for  a  layman  to  see  how  any  amount  of  piety  or 
goodness  can  materially  improve  the  temporal 
condition  of  the  man  or  woman  whose  wages 
will  not  afford  a  decent  livelihood.  Irreligion 
and  immorality  are  often  the  result  rather  than 
the  cause  of  poverty  and  wretchedness.  The 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


51 


virtues  are  iiiucli  more  easily  cultivated  by  tlie 
man  surrounded  with  the  comforts  and  pleasures 
of  life,  than  by  him  who  is  constantly  in  the 
clutch  of  poverty. 

Education  is  also  seriously  suggested  as  a 
remedial  measure.  But  education  does  not  im¬ 
prove  the  material  condition  of  the  working 
classes,  but  merely  enables  them  to  better  ap¬ 
preciate  their  wrongs,  and  feel  their  sufferings 
more  keenly.  If  our  working  classes  were  ig¬ 
norant,  they  would  be  as  well  satisfied  with 
their  condition  as  were  the  southern  slaves. 
Ignorance  also  is  the  effect  of  poverty  instead 
of  its  cause.  Just  as  soon  as  parents  are  able 
to  surround  themselves  with  the  comforts  of  life, 

they  gladly  educate  their  children. 

Technical  education  is  undoubtedly  beneficial 

to  its  possessor  and  secures  him  better  wages. 
But  there  are  comparatively  few  positions  in 
which  one  would  have  any  use  for  such  an  edu¬ 
cation.  The  great  mass  of  employes  require  little 

skill  in  their  business  and  therefore  do  not  need 
and  would  not  be  benefitted  by  a  technical  educa¬ 
tion. 

Co-operation  is  the  scheme  suggested  for 
laboring  men  to  combine  their  surplus  earnings 


52 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


aiKl  establish  stores,  banks,  manufactories  and 
other  enterprises.  But  this  remedy  merely 
touches  the  evils  I  have  described.  Such  asso¬ 
ciations  merely  lessen  the  cost  of  subsistence, 
thus  eventually  enabling  the  employer  to  compel 
the  laborer  to  work  for  even  lower  wages  than 
before.  A  very  exceptional  case,  however, 
might  result  as  with  the  Bochdale  Pioneers, 
who  were  laboring  men  in  the  days  when  manu¬ 
facturing  was  in  its  infancy  and  required  but 
little  capital.  They  combined  their  means  and 
founded  a  successful  manufacturing  establish¬ 
ment,  but  the  ]*esult  has  been  that  they  have 
raised  themselves  out  of  the  laboring  class  and 
become  capitalists,  and  have  thus  left  the  work¬ 
ing  classes  as  low  as  they  were  before.  It  is 
just  as  impossible  that  we  can  all  become  capi¬ 
talists  as  it  is  for  us  all  to  become  Presidents  of 
the  United  States.  And  the  only  true  solution 
of  the  labor  problem  is,  not  a  recipe  for  enabling 
all  working  men  to  become  capitalists  and  em¬ 
ploy  other  laborers  to  work  for  them,  but  a  sys¬ 
tem  that  will  better  the  lot  of  the  laboring  man 
while  a  laboring  man. 

Of  com  'se  there  are  thousands  of  cases  in 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


53 


which  unusually  skilled  or  intelligent  workmen 
have  risen  from  their  low  estate  and  become 
wealthy.  But  such  opportunities  are  rapidly 
disappearing,  and  within  another  generation 
will  be  entirely  gone.  A  workman  in  a  great 
manufacturing  establishment  has  not  one  chance 
in  a  thousand  of  ever  becoming  a  manufacturer. 

Sucli  cases,  however,  do  not  improve  the  con¬ 
dition  of  the  laboring  class,  which  is  left  as  low 
as  ever.  They  merely  show  that  it  is  possible 
for  perhaps  one  workman  out  of  a  thousand,  of 
extraordinary  skill  or  intelligence,  to  shake  off 
the  shackles  that  fetter  the  laboring  man. 

It  might  as  well  be  said  that  the  Union  sol¬ 
diers  in  the  southern  prison-pens  had  no  reason 
to  be  discontented  with  their  wretched  food  and 
treatment,  because  occasionally  a  prisoner  es¬ 
caped;  or  that  the  negroes  in  the  south  should 
have  been  satisfied  with  slavery  because  once  in 
a  while  a  slave  could  get  away,  as  to  say  that 
the  working  classes  should  be  satisfied  with  their 
condition,  terrible  as  it  is,  because  occasionally 
a  workman  of  the  rarest  skill,  intelligence  and 
ability  can  leave  his  wretched  lot. 

Co-operation  is  only  possible  in  small  enter- 


54 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


prises  requiring  little  capital.  Our  different 
industries  are  now  conducted  on  so  large  a  scale, 
that  co-operation  is  usually  utterly  impractica¬ 
ble.  Those  enterprises  in  which  there  is  the 
greatest  oppression  of  employes  and  the  public, 
are  beyond  the  reach  of  such  associations. 

The  female  author  of  the  article  on 
Communism  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britan- 
nica,  says  that  co-operation  will  remedy 
all  the  wrongs  of  our  working  classes. 
That  if  they  are  not  paid  enough  by 
their  employers  they  should  put  their  savings 
together  and  go  into  business  for  themselves. 
What  a  child-like  remark  that  is!  Its  sim¬ 
plicity  and  absurdity  would  make  it  worthy  of 
the  omniscient  political  economist  of  the  other 
sex.  Just  as  if  a  lot  of  section  men  that  work 
upon  the  railroad  track  for  a  dollar  a  day,  and 
can  hardly  keep  body  and  soul  together — just  as 
if  men  in  their  pitiable  state  could  combine 
their  savings  and  build  a  railroad!  Just  as  if 
the  anthracite  coal  miners  could  escape  slavery 
for  wages  that  do  not  allow  them  to  decently 
exist  and  combine  their  superfluous  earnings 
and  buy  a  coal  mine  and  compete  with  that  gi- 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


55 


gantic  combination  that  has  a  capital  stock  of 
half  a  billion  dollars!  The  mere  statement 
of  such  a  theory  is  its  own  best  refutation. 

In  some  cases  co-operation  would  undoubt¬ 
edly  be  beneficial;  but  it  is  evident  that  as  com¬ 
monly  understood,  it  is  not  the  solution  of  the 
labor  question.  England  is  the  birth  place  of 
co-operative  institutions  and  the  condition  of 
her  working  classes  is  worse  than  our  own. 

Strikes  are  terribly  wasteful  measures,  and  the 
advantages  they  gain  will  seldom  more  than 
equal  the  wages  lost.  Even  when  strikes  or 
arbitration  are  successful  in  raising  the  rate  of 
wages  or  reducing  the  hours  of  labor,  they 
merely  benefit  one  class  at  the  expense  of  an¬ 
other;  for  the  increased  wages  are  added  to  the 
cost  of  production  and  eventually  paid  by  the 
consumer.  They  do  nothing  whatever  to  pre¬ 
vent  the  waste  and  extravagance  of  our  competi¬ 
tive  industrial  system  in  which  two  men  are 
doing  the  work  that  could  better  be  done  by 
one.  Manufacturers’  profits  were  even  greater 
under  higher  wages  than  they  are  to-day. 

Strikes  are  also  desperate  measures,  and  are 
apt  to  result  in  bloodshed  and  thus  prejudice 


56 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


the  cause  of  labor  before  the  public.  The  only 
way  a  strike  can  be  successful  is  to  use  force,  if 
necessary,  to  prevent  others  from  taking  the 
place  of  the  strikers.  For  if  this  be  allowed, 
strikes  would  almost  invariably  fail,  for  there 
are  so  many  unemployed,  that  there  is  hardly  a 
single  industry  in  which  the  workmen  could 
not  be  replaced  by  others  at  lower  wages. 
Force,  either  actual  or  implied,  is  a  necessary 
factor  in  nearly  every  successful  strike. 

Henry  George  has  endeared  himself  to  the 
working  classes  of  the  world  through  his  persist¬ 
ent  efforts  in  their  behalf.  He  has  depicted 
some  of  the  evils  of  our  industrial  system  with  a 
master  hand,  and  his  magnificent  work,  “Progress 
and  Poverty,’’  will  be  a  part  of  the  permanent 
literature  of  mankind. 

The  remedy  he  suggests  is  for  the  state  to 
confiscate  the  ownership  of  land  by  levying 
all  taxes  upon  real  estate  so  near  its  rental  value 
that  no  one  can  afford  to  own  it  unless  he  uses 
it  himself. 

This  remedy  would  do  little  towards  remov¬ 
ing,  and  in  some  directions,  would  even  increase 
the  evils  of  our  present  system.  If  our  railroads 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


57 


did  not  own  their  right  of  way,  hut  had  to  pay 
rent  for  it,  it  is  evident  that  this  would  he 
charged  up  with  the  operating  expenses  of  *the 
road,  and  the  increased  cost  of  transportation 
would  eventually  he  paid  hy  the  consuming  pub¬ 
lic.  But  it  would  accomplish  absolutely  noth¬ 
ing  in  preventing  the  waste,  extravagance, 
monopolies  and  combinations  so  characteristic 
of  railroads  and  most  other  industrial  enter¬ 
prises.  Their  profits  would  be  as  great,  and 
their  employes  and  the  public  would  be  as  much 
at  their  mercy  as  ever. 

Whatever  rent  our  manufacturing  establish¬ 
ments  should  have  to  pay,  would  at  once  be 
added  to  the  price  of  their  products,  and  would 
eventually  be  more  than  paid  for  by  consumers. 
But  it  would  not  affect  the  wages  paid  by  such 
manufacturers  to  their  workmen,  nor  prevent 
the  present  monopolies  and  combinations  that 
place  consumers  at  their  mercy. 

The  great  land  owners  of  city  or  country, 
often,  if  not  usually,  compel  their  tenants  to 
pay  the  taxes  as  well  as  rent.  It  is  evident 
that,  until  the  taxes  should  amount  to  the  total 
rental  value  of  the  land,  they  would  be  paid  by 


58 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


the  tenant  in  addition  to  whatever  rent  he  could 
pay  his  landlord,  and  thus  his  condition  would 
be  rendered  worse,  if  possible,  than  it  is  now. 
Our  tenants  feel  that  their  lot  is  hard  enough 
wdthout  an  increase  of  the  burdens  which  they 
already  bear. 

If  the  iK?medy  were  as  successful  as  its  au¬ 
thor  hopes  in  making  the  ownership  of  land  so 
burdensome  that  the  owner  must  surrender  it 
to  the  state  or  use  it  himself,  it  is  evident  that 
our  large  land  owmers  would  not  give  up  their 
land,  but  w^ould  use  it  for  stock-ranches,  or  go 
to  farming  on  a  large  scale  by  means  of  labor- 
saving  machinery.  There  would  thus  be  more 
superfluous  farm  products  raised,  and  the  far- 
iner’s  lot  would  be  worse  than  before. 

Many  of  these  remedies  would  for  a  time 
alleviate  the  sufferings  of  the  working^  classes, 
but  they  would  give  no  permanent  relief.  They 
do  not  touch  the  inherent  evils  of  our  industrial 
system.  The  terrible  waste  of  competition  they 
leave  unchecked.  The  present  system  of  distri¬ 
bution  they  do  not  change.  The  ever  broaden¬ 
ing  chasm  between  the  rich  and  poor  would  still 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


59 


remain.  The  industrial  problem  they  leave  un¬ 
solved. 

The  object  of  this  book  is  to  demonstrate 
how  easily  many  of  the  evils  of  our  industrial 
system  can  be  righted,  and  how  millions  of  our 
people  can  be  supplied  with  far  more  comforts 
and  conveniences  of  life  than  they  now  enjoy, 
and  yet  without  encroaching  upon  the  rights  of 
others.  As  the  remedy  suggested  is  gradually 
applied  to  different  industries,  the  wages  and 
condition  of  the  working  classes  will  be  perma¬ 
nently  improved.  For  some  industries  I  have 
suggested  no  relief,-— not  because  there  is  none, 
but  because  the  time  is  yet  far  distant  when  it 
can  be  applied.  The  measures  which  I  advocate 
will  be  adopted  one  by  one.  There  are  only  a 
few  of  them  for  which  we  are  now  prepared  and 
it  will  be  years  before  they  can  all  be  adpoted. 

If  therefore  the  reader  is  not  prepared  to  ac¬ 
cept  some  of  the  proposed  measures,  he  must 
not  for  that  reason  reject  them  all.  Every  one 
should  be  considered  by  itself  and  independent 
of  all  that  follow. 


4 


TE.LaB.GRAPHS. 


III. 

One  of  the  necessary  steps  in  the  perma¬ 
nent  solution  of  the  industrial  problem,  is 
for  the  national  government  to  purchase  the  tel¬ 
egraphs  of  the  United  States  and  manage  them 
like  the  postoffice  in  the  interest  of  the  many 
instead  of  the  few,  and  save  the  profits  for  the 
people  instead  of  the  millionaires. 

Poor’s  Railroad  Manual  states  that  the  capi¬ 
tal  stock  of  the  Western  Union  telegraph  compa¬ 
ny  is  eighty  million  dollars,  and  its  funded  debt 
57,214,456.  At  least  two-thirds  of  the  capital 
stock  is  “water,”  and  the  entire  cost  of  all  the 
property  of  the  Western  Union  telegraph  com¬ 
pany  was  undoubtedly  less  than  thirty-five 
million  dollars.  This  amount  also  includes 
the  value  of  useless  telegraph  lines  which  have 
been  purchased  in  order  to  destroy  competition. 
Most  telegraph  properties  could  be  replaced  at 


62 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


less  than  their  original  cost,  as  labor  and  mater¬ 
ials  are  much  cheaper  than  when  the  lines  were 
originally  constructed. 

The  very  utmost  therefore  that  their  owners 
could  justly  demand  would  be  that  in  taking  gov¬ 
ernmental  control  of  the  telegraphs  we  should  pay 
either  the  entire  original  cost  of  construction,  or 
the  cost  of  replacing  them,  either  of  which  in 
the  case  of  the  Western  Union  Company  would 
not  exceed  thirty-five  million  dollars.  As  that 
amount  of  money  could  easily  be  spared  from 
our  overflowing  national  treasury,  it  would  be 
unnecessary  for  us  to  increase  our  national  debt. 
The  stockholders  however  would  undoubtedly 
prefer  to  be  paid  in  government  bonds  beai*ing 
three  per  cent,  interest  (the  present  government 
rate).  I  am  unable  to  obtain  a  recent  state¬ 
ment  of  the  other  telegraph  corporations  but  of 
course  all  companies  should  be  treated  alike. 

The  net  earnings  of  the  Western  Union  Com¬ 
pany  for  the  year  1884  were  ^6,610,435  which 
was  equal  to  a  profit  of  nineteen  per  cent,  on  the 
actual  cost  of  the  entire  property.  The  annual 
interest  at  three  per  cent,  on  the  bonds  for  thir¬ 
ty-five  million  dollars  issued  to  the  stockholders, 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


63 


would  be  ^1,050,000,  which  subtracted  from  the 
net  profits  would  have  left  a  balance  of  ^5,560,- 
435  to  the*  goverumeut  for  the  year  1884 — 
enough  to  pay  off  the  entire  cost  of  the  property 
within  six  years. 

But  suppose  that  instead  of  merely  paying 
the  original  cost,  the  government  should  also  pay 
for  all  the  watered  stock  besides,  making  the 
grand  total  of  ^87,214,456.  In  paying  such  a 
price  we  would  actually  give  away  fifty  million 
dollars  to  the  stockholders  without  any  considera¬ 
tion  whatever.  Even  then  the  annual  interest 
at  three  per  cent,  would  amount  to  only  ^2,616,- 
433,  which  substracted  from  the  net  earnings 
above  mentioned  would  still  have  left  a  net 
profit  to  the  government  for  the  year  1884  of 
^3,994,002. 

Such  an  exorbitant  price  should  not  be 
given  and  my  only  object  in  supposing  it  is  to 
demonstrate  the  fact  that  it  will  pay  us  to  secure 
national  control  of  the  telegraphs  even  if  we 
should  decide  to  give  fifty  million  dollars  more 
than  their  actual  value. 

The  efficient  managers  and  employes 
would  of  course  pass  into  the  service  of 


64 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


the  government,  and  the  business  could  be  con¬ 
tinued  in  the  present  systematic  nitinner,  and 
dishonesty  among  employes 'will  then  be  as  cer¬ 
tain  of  detection  as  it  is  now.  The  present 
charges  wmuld  he  reduced,  and  the  efficiency  of 
the  service  improved.  The  telegraphs  would 
then  like  the  postoffice  he  managed  for  the  con¬ 
venience  of  the  people.  'Now  they  are  conducted 
solely  in  the  interest  of  their  stockholders  with¬ 
out  any  regard  whatever  for  the  wishes  cff  their 
patrons  or  employes. 

Under  governmental  control  expenses  in 
many  directions  would  be  reduced.  Office  rent 
would  be  seldom  necessary  as  the  postoffices 
would  usually  furnish  the  necessary  accommo¬ 
dations.  ]N^ow  there  are  often  offices  of  competing 
companies  in  the  same  town  or  city  and  fre¬ 
quently  in  the  same  building.  Such  useless  ex¬ 
penses  would  of  course  be  saved.  As  there 
would  be  no  competition  the  government  would 
not  have  to  buy  up  a  useless  competing  line 
every  year  or  two  as  the  Western  Union  Com¬ 
pany  does  now,  and  for  which  the  public  even¬ 
tually  pays.  The  franking  privilege  would  be 
abolished  and  no  small  additional  income  he 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


65 


thus  received.  Oiir  present  companies  spend  a 
great  amount  of  money  for  lawyer’s  fees  and  lit¬ 
igation.  This  expense  also  would  he  saved. 
Telegraphers  could  frequently  act  as  postmasters 
or  assistants  and  thus  materially  reduce  the  ex¬ 
penses  of  the  postoffice  department.  Congress 
would  at  once  undoubtedly  raise  the  wages  of 
the  operators  and  strikes  would  be  for  ever  num¬ 
bered  with  the  past,  and  the  telegraph  question 
settled  for  all  time  to  come. 

Governmental  control  of  tlie  telegraphs  will 
remove  their  corrupting  influence  from  politics 
and  legislation.  Telegraph  companies  now 
give  their  franking  privilege  to  our  congress¬ 
men,  legislators  and  important  officers,  often 
with  a  view  of  influencing  their  official  action. 

■  They  frequently  spend  large  amounts  of  money 
to  secure  or  prevent  legislation.  This  purify¬ 
ing  influence  alone  would  be  sufficient  reason 
for  taking  national  control  of  the  telegraphs. 
A  measure  that  will  do  away  with  any  of  the 
present  political  bribery  and  corruption  is 
worthy  of  tlie  most  serious  consideration  even 
if  it  would  accomplish  nothing  else. 

Some  of  our  telegraph  companies  have  fre- 


66 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


queiitly  exercised  the  power  of  crushing  news¬ 
papers  which  they  dislike.  ^  Government  tele¬ 
graphs  of  course  would  not  be  allowed  to  wield 
such  arbitrary  powers. 

The  general  supervision  of  the  entire  system 
would  undoubtedly  be  placed  in  the  hands  of 
one  official,  who  would  probably  be  a  member  of 
the  President’s  cabinet  like  the  postmaster  gen¬ 
eral,  and  the  business  would  be  as  thoroughly 
systematized  as  our  postoffice. 

The  service  would  be  almost  wholly  unpar¬ 
ti  sau.  The  people  of  the  country  Avoiild  not 
submit  for  twenty-four  hours  to  have  telegraph 
employes  lose  their  positions  upon  a  change 
of  administration.  A  wholesale  discharge 
of  telegraphers  for  political  reasons  would  de¬ 
stroy  the  party  responsible  for  it,  and  would 
never  be  attempted  whether  there  were  any  civ¬ 
il  service  laws  in  existence  or  not. 

The  reason  why  there  are  so  many  removals 
in  our  postoffice  department  upon  a  change  of 
adjiiinistration  is  because  a  person  requires  no 
particular  skill,  experience  or  ability  to  act  as 
postmaster,  and  almost  any  one  can  fill  the  place. 
Postmasters  are  usually  in  comfortable  circum- 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


67 


stances,  and  not  dependent  npon  the  position 
for  a  livelihood.  They  are  also  nsiially  active  poli¬ 
ticians  many  peaple  therefore  feel  that  there  is  no 
great  injustice  in  allowing  the  party  in  power 
to  control  the  postoffice  patronage. 

With  telegraphers,  liowever,  the  case  wonld 
be  entirely  different.  They  have  spent  years  in 
attaining  their  present  proficiency  and  skill.  They 
have  selected  telegraphy  as  their  lifework  and 
have  fitted  themselves  for  nothing  else.  They  are 
usually  poor  and  dependent  npon  their  earnings 
for  a  living^,  and  there  is  not  the  sliMitest  doubt 
whatever  that  the  telegraph  service  would  be 
wholly  unpartisan,  as  it  is  in  England  today  or 
as  the  army  is  with  us. 

It  ought  not  to  be  difficult  to  obtain  nation¬ 
al  control  of  the  telegraphs  in  the  United  States. 
A  majority  of  the  people  are  undoubtedly  in 
favor  of  it.  Governmental  'control  of  the  rail¬ 
roads  and  telegraphs  is  a  part  of  the  platform  of 
the  Knights  of  Labor,  a  powerful  organization 
which  numbers  nearly  a  million  members.  Cy¬ 
rus  W.  Field  in  a  recent  number  of  the  North 
American  Keview  declares  that  the  time  has 
come  for  the  government  to  own  and  operate 


68 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


the  telegraphs.  For  years  one  of  the  ablest 
iriembers  of  the  FTnited  States  senate  has  been 
trying  to  have  congress  construct  a  postal  tele¬ 
graph.  Even  now  whenever  congress  author¬ 
izes  the  erection  of  a  railroad  bridge  across  a 
navigable  stream,  tlie  right-of-way  for  a  postal 
telegraph  is  reserved. 

We  ought  not  however  to  waste  time  and 
money  in  the  construction  of  a  short  telegraph 
line.  It  would  be  unjust  to  telegraph  companies 
and  be  bitterly  antagonized  by  them.  As  they 
would  control  the  remaining  business  of  the  coun¬ 
try  they  might  successfully  hamper  the  workings 
of  the  postal  telegraph.  It  would  also  be  as  use¬ 
less  a  waste  of  national  wealth  as  is  the  con¬ 
struction  of  a  newline  by  a  competing  company. 
We  should  spend  no  time  over  wasteful  halfway 
measures.  The  government  sliould  do  our  tel¬ 
egraphing  and  do  it  all.  It  should  purchase  all 
the  lines  and  operate  the  entire  telegraph  sys¬ 
tem  of  the  country,  and  allow  no  more  competi¬ 
tion  than  there  is  now  in  the  postoffice  depart¬ 
ment. 

It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  form  a  new 
political  organization  in  order  to  obtain  govern- 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


69 


mental  control  of  tlie  telegraph.  Party  allegi¬ 
ance  is  so  strong  that  we  are  apt  to  vote  for  our 
own  party,  though  another  may  better  represent 
our  views.  We  also  feel  that  in  voting;  for  a 
new  party  we  are  throwing  our  votes  away.  A 
new  party,  therefore,  should  not  be  organized 
except  as  a  last  resort.  It  is  probable  that  more 
can  be  accomplished  now  for  the  cause  of  gov¬ 
ernment  telegraphy  by  working  within  our 
present  political  organizations  than  l)y  forming 
a  new  one.  It  ought  to  lie  easier  to  get  a  ma¬ 
jority  of  one  of  our  leading  parties  to  declare  in 
favor  of  government  telegraphs,  than  to  form  a 

new  political  organization  on  that  issue  and  get 
a  majority  of  all  the  voters  of  the  country  to 
leave  the  old  parties  and  enter  the  new  one. 

All  who  favor  government  telegraphs  should 
use  every  endeavor  in  their  political  conventions 
to  get  their  party  platforms  to  sustain  the  cause. 
The  political  party  that  endorses  it  will  draw 
nincli  outside  support.  If  both  parties  declare 
for  it,  all  the  better.  The  success  of  the  canse 
will  be  then  assured.  Political  organizations 
are  part  of  the  means  that  must  be  used  in  order 
to  secure  govern nient  telegraphy,  as  well  as  all 
the  other  remedial  changes  suggested  later  in 
this  book. 


RAILaROADS. 


lY. 

Another  important  step  towards  the  perma¬ 
nent  solution  of  the  industrial  problem,  is  for 
the  national  government  to  purchase  and  oper¬ 
ate  the  entire  railway  system  of  th5  United 
States. 

Poor’s  Manual  for  1884  states  that  the 
actual  cost  of  all  tlie  railroads  operated  in  the 
United  States  in  1883  certainly  did  not  exceed 
§3,787,410,728.  But  watered  stocks  and  secur¬ 
ities  have  been  issued  to  such  an  extent  for  the 
purpose  of  paying  interest  and  dividends,  that 
the  inflated  value  of  all  the  railways  operated  in 
the  United  States  in  1883  was  §7,507,471,311, 
or  nearly  four  billion  dollars  more  than  their 
actual  cost. 

These  railways  were  mainly  constructed 
when  labor  and  materials  were  probably  worth 
from  twenty-flve  to  fifty  per  cent  more  than 


72 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


they  are  to-day;  and  there  is  little  doubt  that 
the  entire  railway  system  of  the  United  States 
could  he  replaced  at  one  hillion  dollars  less 
than  the  oriorinal  cost. 

Three  per  cent,  would  be  an  excessive  rate 
of  interest  to  pay  upon  the  purchase  price  of 
the  roads,  for  onr  three  per  cent,  government 
bonds  sell  at  a  premium;  and  as  there  would  no 
longer  be  opportunities  to  invest  private  capital 
in  railways,  the  rate  of  interest  would  materially 
fall. 

Suppose,  however,  that  the  national  govern¬ 
ment  should  take  possession  of  all  the  railways 
in  the  United  States  and  pay  for  them  their  en¬ 
tire  original  cost  in  government  bonds  bearing 
three  per  cent,  interest.  The  net  earnings  of 
the  railroads  for  1883  are  stated  in  Poor’s  Man¬ 
ual  for  1884,  to  have  been  ^336,911,884,  ont  of 
which  were  paid  the  interest  and  dividends  upon 
railroad  bonds  and  stocks.  The  animal  interest 
at  three  per  cent,  on  #3,787,410,628  would  be 
#113,622,321.  This  subtracted  from  the  net 
earnings,  would  have  left  a  balance  of  #223,- 
289,563.  The  government,  therefore,  with  as 
expensive  railway  management  as  exists  to-day. 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


73 


could  liave  paid  three  per  cent,  interest  on  the 
original  cost  of  all  the  railroads  in  the  United 
States,  and  yet  have  saved  for  the  people  two 
hundred  and  twenty-three  million  dollars  in  a 
single  year. 

Suppose,  however,  that  instead  of  merely  pay¬ 
ing  the  entire  original  cost  of  the  railways,  we 
should  also  pay  for  all  the  watered  stock,  secur¬ 
ities  and  floating  debts  besides,  making  the 
grand  total  of  SV, 567,471, 311,  or  probably  three 
times  what  it  would  actually  cost  to-day  to  con¬ 
struct  and  equip  all  the  railroads  in  the  United 
States.  Even  then  the  annual  interest  at  three 
per  cent,  would  amount  to  only  ^^227,024,139, 
which  subtracted  from  the  net  earninors  would 
have  left  for  the  year  1883,  a  balance  cleared  by 
the  government  or  saved  to  the  people,  of  near¬ 
ly  one  hundred  and  ten  million  dollars 
— enough  to  pay  nearly  one-half  of  the 
entire  running  expenses  of  our  national 
government.  Of  course,  such  a  price  should 
not  be  paid  for  it,  as  it  would  be  virtually 
giving  away  to  railroad  stockholders  five  billion 
dollars  without  any  consideration  whatever. 
But  even  if  we  should  pay  such  an  exorbitant 


74 


THE  PEOPLE  S  PROBLEM 


price  as  this  the  saving  that  we  could  effect 
would  still  he  euoruious.  TheXatiou  must  own 
and  operate  the  railways  of  the  country,  what¬ 
ever  may  l)e  the  price  which  we  decide  to  pay. 

It  would  he  far  bettej*  for  the  government 
to  construct  the  railroads  and  telegraphs  actu¬ 
ally  necessary  to  do  the  business  of  the  country, 
for  this  would  give  work  to  the  unemployed, 
and  a  large  number  of  useless  lines  would  not 
be  duplicated.  This  course,  however,  would  be 
unjust  to  the  men  avIio  have  built  our  railroads 
and  telegraphs,  and  would  destroy  the  value  of 
their  property.  The  government  should  neither 
confiscate  nor  destroy  such  property,  but  should 
pay  its  actual  value.  If,  hoAvever,  the  stock¬ 
holders  should  be  unwilling  to  sell  for  the  original 
cost  or  the  replacing  value,  they  can  still  be  al¬ 
lowed  to  keep  their  property;  but  the  national 
government  should  then  duplicate  all  desirable 
lines.  This,  however,  would  render  existing 
railroads  and  telegraphs  useless,  and  their  own¬ 
ers  will  gladly  take  whatever  we  think  it  right  to 
pay,  rather  than  have  the  government  resort  to 
such  a  course. 

With  the  entire  raihvay  system  owned  and 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


75 


operated  by  the  nation,  expenses  would  be  re¬ 
duced  and  the  service  improved  in  almost  every 
direction.  The  railroads  would  all  be  under  the 
supervision  of  a  general  superintending  officer, 
who  would  undoubtedly  be  a  member  of  the 
president’s  cabinet,  like  the  chief  officers  of 
other  federal  departments.  We  could  then  dis¬ 
pense  with  hundreds  of  superfluous  railroad 
presidents  and  general  officers,  who  draw  yearly 
salaries  of  from  ^5,000  to  $50,000.  Our  post¬ 
master  general  gets  but  $8,000  a  year,  and  it  is 
not  likely  that  a  government  railway  official 
would  receive  more.  There  would  be  union 
depots  wherever  possible  and  a  great  amount 
saved  that  is  now  paid  for  keeping  up  compet¬ 
ing  offices  and  depots,  and  spent  for  advertising 
and  other  expenses  now  made  necessary  by  rail¬ 
way  competition.  Kival  depots  would  then  be 
as  useless  as  competing  postoffices,  and  railways 
would  require  no  more  advertising  than  postage 
stamps. 

A  committee  of  the  New  York  legislature 
reported  a  few  years  ago  tliat  the  managers  of 
the  Erie  railroad  in  one  year  spent 
one  million  dollars  in  cnotrolling  elec- 


76 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


tioiis  and  in  bribing  legislatures.  The 
Pacific  Koads  spent  half  a  million  dollars 
among  our  congressmen  in  a  single  session  to 
secure  favorable  legrislation.  These  railroads 
annually  pay  a  steamship  company  an  enor¬ 
mous  subsidy  to  prevent  competition.  There  is 
hardly  a  state  in  the  Union  in  which  the  rail¬ 
roads  do  not  regularly  own  a  large  part  of  its 
legislature.  Yalnable  municipal  privileges  are 
almost  invariably  pnrcliased  of  boards  of  aider- 
men.  Millions  of  dollars  are  annually  spent 
in  corrupting  our  legislators  and  public  officers. 
Millions  more  are  annually  paid  to  lawyers  or 
spent  in  litigation.  The  present  free-pass  sys¬ 
tem,  in  addition  to  its  corrupting  influence,  also 
entails  an  additional  annual  expense  of  millions 
of  dollars,  which  the  public  are  compelled  to 
pay.  Special  rates,  privileges  and  other  favors 
are  also  granted,  for  which  the  public  also  pay 
a  heavy  yearly  tax.  Under  governmental  con¬ 
trol  all  these  expenses  would  be  saved.  There 
is  hardly  a  single  phase  of  railroad  management, 
the  cost  of  which  would  not  be  enormously  re¬ 
duced. 

Indirectly  governmental  management  of  the 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


railways  would  be  of  scarcely  less  advantage 
to  the  public.  Litigation  would  greatly  dimin¬ 
ish.  Our  courts  of  justice  spend  much  of  their 
time  over  cases  in  which  railroad  corporations 
are  parties.  There  would  be  no  more  litigation 
over  government  railways  than  there  now  is 
over  the  postoffice  department,  and  the  public 
would  save  a  large  part  of  the  cost  of  maintain¬ 
ing  our  courts  of  justice. 

Government  railways  would  also  materially 
lessen  the  business  and  expense  of  our  state  leg¬ 
islatures.  Our  legislators  spend  much  of  their 
time  in  endeavoring  to  pass  or  prevent  the  pas¬ 
sage  of  railroad  laws.  With  the  railways  under 
national  control,  state  legislatures  will  have 
no  more  occasion  to  pass  laws  concerning  tliem, 
than  post  offices.  Congress  will  then  just  as 
easily  regulate  railway  charges  and  prevent  dis¬ 
crimination,  as  it  now  does  in  the  postoffice 
department. 

The  most  corrupting  factor  in  American 
politics  to-day,  is  our  present  railway  system. 
It  has  done  more  to  undermine  the  public  faith 
in  representative  government  than  all  other 
causes  put  together.  It  has  been  done  so  often 


78 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


that  the  peo])le  feel  that  the  railroads  can  buy 
up  any  legislature  in  the  land.  They  frequently 
control  political  conventions,  and  can  usually 
defeat  the  nomination  of  any  candidate  whom 
they  particularly  dislike.  Their  influence  is  so 
powerful  that  few  politicians  can  afford  to  dis¬ 
regard  it,  and  onr  public  men  are  continually 
placed  under  obligations  to  them.  Instead  of 
wondering  why  there-  is  so  much  corruption 
among  onr  legislators  and  public  offlcers,  we 
should  rather  be  surprised  that  thei’e  is  not 
more. 

The  time  has  come  when  the  government 
must  control  tiie  railroads,  or  they  will  control 
the  government.  When  the  Nation  oavus  and 
operates  the  railways,  they  will  cease  to  be  a 
corrupting  element  in  politics.  No  one  will 
have  enough  pecuniary  interest  in  the  railways 
to  make  it  profitable  to  resort  to  bribery  to  se¬ 
cure  desired  legislation  or  the  favor  of  the 
courts.  The  raihvays  will  exert  no  more  cor¬ 
rupting  influence  in  politics  than  the  postofflce, 
and  congress  will  then  regulate  railway  charges 
and  enact  railway  legislation  without  being  ex¬ 
posed  to  any  more  temptation  than  in  passing 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


79 


laws  concern ing  tlie  postoffice  department.  The 
very  fact  that  croverninental  control  of  the  rail- 
ways  will  remove  much  of  the  bribery  and  cor¬ 
ruption  so  characteristic  of  American  politics, 
is  a  stronger  aj*gnment  in  favor  of  the  measure, 
than  the  hnndreds  of  millions  of  dollars  it  will 
annually  save  for  the  people. 

As  soon  as  the  I'ailways  are  purchased  by 
the  Nation,  congress  will  materially  reduce  rail¬ 
way  cliarges,  and  raise  the  wages  and  improve 
the  condition  of  railway  employes,  so  that  they 
can  comfortaldy  exist.  Railroad  corporations 
nsnally  care  little  about  the  welfare  of  their  ser¬ 
vants,  whom  they  will  snl)ject  to  almost  any  in¬ 
convenience  and  privation  in  order  to  effect  a 
slight  saving  for  themselves.  ITnder  govern¬ 
mental  control  employes  would  be  treated  like 
men,  and  not  as  brutes,  and  every  effort  consist¬ 
ent  with  the  interest  of  the  public  would  be 
made  to  promote  their  happiness  and  prosperity. 
As  government  railways  would  have  no  compe¬ 
tition,  Sundays  and  holidays  conld  be  generally 
observed  among  railway  men. 

Ivailroad  employes  would  rather  work  for 
the  public  than  for  a  corporation.  The  govern- 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


80 

merit  would  have  nothing  to  gain  by  oppress¬ 
ing  them  and  paying  them  starvation  wages, 
which  is  such  a  prevalent  practice  with  corpor¬ 
ations.  The  people  would  take  pride  in  paying 
their  railway  servants  well.  When  they  were 
injured  in  the  service  they  would  either  be  given 
positions  where  they  could  easily  earn  a  com¬ 
fortable  livelihood,  or  be  paid  annuities  or  pen¬ 
sions,  as  our  soldiers  are  for  injuries  received 
in  the  sei’vice  of  their  country.  The  govern¬ 
ment  would  never  suffer  an  employe  injured  in 
the  service  to  go  to  the  poor  house  in  his  old 
age.  The  confidence  that  the  public  would  not 
forsake  them  would  make  railroad  men  far  more 
faithful  even  than  they  are  to-day,  and  a  strike 
among  them  would  be  unknown.  This  is  the 
way  in  which  the  “  railroad  question  ”  can  he 
forever  settled. 

If  government  railways  would  only  improve 
the  wanes  and  condition  of  railway  men,  and 
neither  diminish  political  corruption,  nor  the 
present  railway  charges,  that  would  certainly  be 
reason  enough  for  taking  possession  of  the  en¬ 
tire  railway  system  of  the  United  States. 

(U^vernment  railways  would  be  conducted 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


81 


in  the  interest  and  for  the  convenience  of  the 
people.  Now  railroad  corporations  will  not 
give  the  public  satisfactory  service  and  accom¬ 
modations  unless  compelled  to  do  so  tlirough 
competition.  They  always  endeavor  to  make  it 
as  inconvenient  as  possible  for  their  patrons  to 
travel  over  a  rival  route.  Time  taldes  are  usually 
so  arranged  whenever  possible,  that  the  train  will 
reach  a  station  after  the  departure  of  trains  over 
competing  roads.  No  railroad  corporation  con¬ 
sults  the  convenience  of  the  public  unless  there 
is  profit  in  so  doing.  Uncle  Samuel,  however, 
conducts  the  postoffice  in  the  interest  of  the 
people,  and  does  not  Avait  to  give  good  postal 
service  until  compelled  to  do  so  throngh  compe¬ 
tition;  nor  will  he  change  his  policy  when  he 
operates  the  entire  railway  system  of  the  United 


States. 

Our  present  railway  system  is  terribly  waste¬ 
ful  and  extravagant.  In  the  United  States  one 
billion  dollars  have  been  spent  in  the  construc¬ 
tion  of  useless  railroads,  like  the  Nickel  Plate 
and  West  Shore.  Snch  useless  lines  are  con¬ 
tinually  being  constructed,  though  not  on  so 
large  a  scale.  All  these  roads  ,  are  eA^en.tually 


H2 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


paid  for  by  the  public;  for  rates  are  established 
high  enough  to  pay  a  profit  upon  them  all.  If 
the  railways  had  been  operjited  by  the  govern¬ 
ment  there  would  have  been  no  such  extrava¬ 
gance  and  waste.  Instead  of  building  such 
railroads  in  the  east,  where  they  are  entirely  un¬ 
necessary,  they  would  have  been  constructed 
in  the  south  and  west  where  the  people  have 
been  sufferiuD-  for  want  of  them. 

Cbmgress  spends  millions  of  dollars  every 
year  in  improving  the  waterways  of  the  country, 
and  is  strongly  urged  to  spend  millions  more 
for  the  Hennepin  Canal.  The  chief  ol>ject  of 
this  enormous  outlay  is  to  compel  the  railroads 
to  lower  their  charges  because  of  water  compe¬ 
tition.  Government  railways  would  make  such 
expenses  useless,  for  the  government  would  not 
wait  to  reduce  the  present  rates  until  com¬ 
pelled  to  do  so. 

With  all  the  railways  under  governmental 
control,  there  can  be  no  question  whatever  that 
at  the  lowest  possible  calculation,  bribery  and 
corruption  in  politics  would  greatly  diminish, 
the  railways  would  be  conducted  Avholly 
for  the  convenience  of  the  public,  the 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


83 


wages  and  condition  of  the  employes 
wonld  be  greatly  improved,  and  yet,  in 
addition  to  paying  the  necessary  interest  and 
running  expenses,  we  could  save  from  two 
linndred  to  three  hundred  million  dollars  every 
year.  Who  can  doubt  the  wisdom,  necessity 
and  practicability  of  taking  national  control  of 
the  railways? 

Our  law-makers  have  often  tried  to  regulate 
railroad  charges  and  prevent  wrongful  discrimi¬ 
nation  and  the  consolidation  or  combination  of 
competing  lines.  But  experience  has  shown  that 
railroads  will  combine  or  consolidate  in  spite  of 
laws,  and  that  the  attempt  to  regulate  their 
charges  and  prevent  discrimination  has  accom¬ 
plished  little.  The  Standard  Oil  monopoly  has 
*  been  built  up  mainly  through  unjust  railroad 
discrimination  against  its  rivals,  in  spite  of  ex¬ 
isting  laws.  Such  has  been  the  case  with  many 
other  combinations.  The  monopolies  of  the 
country  owe  much  to  railroad  discrimination. 
This  power  which  railroads  wield  in  spite  of 
law,  places  many  whom  they  dislike  at  their 
mercy.  They  can  often  ruin  a  merchant  or 
shipper  if  they  choose.  They  can  take  away  the 


84 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


business  of  one  city  and  give  it  to  another.  By 
a  single  stroke  of  the  pen  they  can  raise  the 
traffic  charges  so  as  to  redn-ce  the  value  of  far¬ 
mers’  products  by  millions  of  dollars.  With 
government  railways  such  wrongs  and  unjust 
discrimination  would  be  unknown. 

Legislation  can  do  little  in  lowering  rates  of 
transportation.  Even  wdien  successful,  it  mere¬ 
ly  enables  the  farmer  to  get  a  cent  or  two  a 
bushel  more  for  his  wheat  and  the  consumer  to 
save  a  small  margin  on  his  purchases.  Under 
the  present  system  the  government  will  not 
compel  a  railroad  corporation  to  pay  employes 
a  single  cent  more  than  it  likes,  and  any  legis¬ 
lation  that  lessens  the  profits,  is  apt  to  have  the 
effect  of  cutting  down  employes’  w^ages.  The 
only  way  in  which  railways  can  be  managed  in 
the  interest  of  the  whole  people,  and  railway 
employes  receive  decent  treatment  and  living 
wages,  and  transportation  charges  be  materially 
reduced,  is  for  the  government  to  own  and  oper¬ 
ate  the  entire  railway  system. 

This  must  be  done  soon,  for  the  farmers  of 
the  west  are  being  most  seriously  injured  by 
the  competition  of  the  wheat  fields  of  India. 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


85 


The  prosperity  of  oiir  farmers  now  greatly  de¬ 
pends  upon  the  price  their  surplus  products 
bring  in  the  European  markets.  The  total  ex¬ 
port  of  wheat  from  the  United  States  in  1880, 
was  one  hundred  and  eighty  million  bushels. 
Tlie  export  of  India  wheat  has  steadily  increased 
from  three  million  five  hundred  thousand  bush¬ 
els  in  1880,  to  fifty  million  bushels  in  1885. 
At  this  rate  of  increase  it  is  only  a  question  of 
a  very  few  years  when  India  can  supply  the 
markets  of  the  world  at  prices  under  which 
American  farmers  would  starve  to  deatli.  Labor 
in  India  costs  but  five  cents  a  day,  and  it  is 
evident  that  we  cannot  compete  in  the  European 
markets  unless  we  get  our  surplus  wheat  tran&r  , 
ported  to  the  coast  at  the  lowest  possible  price. 
This  never  can  be  done  nntil  the  government 
operates  the  railroads  and  saves  the  profits  for 
the  people,  instead  of  giving  them  away  to  the 
millionaires. 

AVithin  fifteen  years  we  actually  gave  away 
to  railroad  corporations  nearly  two  hundred 
million  acres  of  land,  which  is  worth  as  much  to¬ 
day  as  it  would  actually  cost  to  construct  and 
equip  one-fourth  of  all  the  useful  railways  in 


86 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


the  United  States.  The  English  language  is 
inadequate  to  describe  the  appalling  magnitude 
of  the  terrible  mistake  we  have  made  in  thus 
using  up  the  people’s  heritage  to  build  the  rail¬ 
roads  of  this  country,  and  instead  of  managing 

them  in  the  interests  of  the  public,  we  have 
deliberately  given  them  away  to  private  corpor¬ 
ations  to  plunder  and  oppress  us. 

Governmental  operation  of  the  railways  will 
raise  the  price  of  farming  land  all  over  the 
United  States.  It  will  lessen  the  amount  of 
freight  charges  deducted  from  the  price  of  the 
farmer’s  products,  and  destroy  the  wheat  monop¬ 
olies  that  now,  through  the  discrimination  of 
railroad  corporations,  are  enabled  to  obtain  his 
wheat  for  much  less  than  its  actual  value.  It 
is  to  the  interest  of  every  man,  woman  and 
.child  in  the  United  States,  who  does  not  own 
stock  or  receive  special  privileges  from  railroad 
corporations,  to  have  the  national  government 
purchase  and  operate  the  entire  railway  system 
of  the  country. 

There  ]night  still  be  some  dishonesty  left 
among  railroad  officials  after  the  government 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


87 


obtains  possession  of  the  railways,  bnt  there 
would  be  far  less  than  there  is  now. 

The  stockholders  of  railroad  corporations 
are  often  robbed  and  oppressed  as  much  as  their 
employes  or  the  public.  Our  great  railroad  and 
telegi'aph  financiers  frequently  make  it  their 
business  as  much  to  fleece  the  stockholders  as 
their  patrons.  The  stockholders  are  often 
cheated  by  construction  companies,  to  whom 
the  directors  pay  exorbitant  prices  with  tlie  un¬ 
derstanding  that  they  are  to  share  the  profits. 

In  the  west,  railroad  officials  often  form 
town-site  companies  to  locate  railroad  towns 
through  a  new  country.  They  sell  the  lots  and 
pocket  the  proceeds  without  even  pretending  to 
account  for  them  to  the  stockholders.  They 
will  locate  toAvns  in  the  most  unfit  places,  if  it 
will  pay  best,  and  almost  invariably  refuse  to 

select  a  good  natural  situation.  The  profits  of 
warehouse  and  elevator  monopolies  are  often,  if 
not  always,  shared  by  railway  officials;  so  are 
the  profits  of  many  other  monopolies  and  com¬ 
binations.  We  now  regard  it  as  a  matter  of 
course  for  railroad  officers  to  rob  their  stock¬ 
holders. 

With  government  railways,  however,  the 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


fiS 

case  will  be  different.  The  people  wonld  not 
allow  themselves  to  be  openly  defrauded  as  rail¬ 
road  stockholders  are  now.'  There  is  less  cor¬ 
ruption  in  the  postoftice  department  than  in 
any  other  business  in  the  country,  of  equal 
magnitude,  conducted  by  private  corporations. 
The  business  is  conducted  in  such  a  systematic 
manner  that  peculation  is  almost  impossible, 
and  is  always  certain  of  detection.  AThen  the 
entire  railway  system  of  the  country  passes  un¬ 
der  governmental  control,  that  business  will 
also  be  so  systematized  that  there  will  be  few 
opportunities  for  dishonesty.  The  people  will 
then  be  the  stockholders  and  congress  the  board 
of  directors,  and  there  will  be  no  more  pecula¬ 
tion  in  railroad  management,  than  in  the  post 
office  department. 

Instead  of  governmental  control  of  the  rail¬ 
ways  throwing  them  into  politics,  it  would  be 
the  tirst  time  in  their  history  that  their  influ¬ 
ence  has  been  kept  out  of  politics.  The  same 
employes  now  in  the  service  would,  of  course, 
pass  into  the  employ  of  the  government,  and 
the  ablest  railway  managers  of  the  country 
could  be  secured  to  superintend  the  business. 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


89 


It  takes  men  of  experience  and  skill  to  operate 
railways.  The  employes  are  men  who  have 
been  in  the  service  for  years,  and  most  of  whom 
are  men  of  skill  and  whose  places  cannot  he 
filled  by  men  of  no  experience.  They  usually 
take  little  active  interest  in  politics  and  are  de¬ 
pendent  upon  their  situations  for  a  livelihood. 
The  common  sense  of  decency  and  justice,  there¬ 
fore,  would  not  for  a  single  moment  allow  the 
retention  of  their  places  to  depend  upon  the  re¬ 
sult  of  a  political  election.  If  upon  a  change 
of  administration  railroad  employes  should  be 
discharged  to  any  great  extent,  it  would  create 
little  short  of  a  revolution.  The  people,  irre¬ 
spective  of  their  political  preferences,  would  no 
more  submit  to  a  wholesale  discharge  of  railway 
employes  for  political  reasons,  than  of  our  sol¬ 
diers  and  army  officers  on  account  of  their  polit- 
cal  principles.  Even  the  most  determined  par¬ 
tisan  would  refuse  to  risk  his  life  in  the  care  of 
an  engineer  or  train  dispatcher  whose  sole  qual¬ 
ification  for  the  place  was  his  past  political  ser¬ 
vices.  Nothing  would  do  more  for  the  cause  of 
civil  service  reform  in  this  country,  than  gov- 


90 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


eminent  railways  and  telegraphs. 

In  England  the  telegraph  service  is  wholly 
nnpartisan.  John  Bright  says:  The  opening 

of  onr  civil  service  has  met  with  general  ap¬ 
proval  and  after  the  experience  of  some  years  it 
would  he  impossible  to  go  back  to  the  old  sys¬ 
tem.  Appointments  with  us  are  to  a  large  ex¬ 
tent  of  a  permanent  character.  Xo  changes  in 
persons  employed  in  government  offices,  in  the 
Customs,  Excise,  Post  Office  and  Telegraph  de¬ 
partments  take  place  on  a  change  of  govern¬ 
ment,  and  thus  we  avoid  a  vast  source  of  dis¬ 
turbance  and  corruption  which  would  be  opened 
if  the  contrary  plan  were  adopted.” — CjvU  Ser¬ 
vice  ill  Great  Britain^  p.  79,  (Harper’s.) 

Gladstone  says  of  the  employes  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  government:  “We  limit  to  a  few  scores  of 
persons  the  removals  and  appointments  on  these 
occasions,  (party  defeats),,  although  our  minis¬ 
ters  seem  to  us  not  unfrequently  to  be  more 
sharply  severed  from  one  another  in  principle 
and  tendency,  than  are  the  successive  Presidents 
of  the  Great  Union.” — Civil  Service  in  Great 
Britain^  p.  3. 

In  the  service  of  the  English  government 

o  o 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


91 


throughout  the  world  there  are  luindreds  of 
thousands  of  employes,  and  of  all  these,  only  a 
few  scores  of  persons,  being  those  who  occupy 
the  highest  official  positions  and  whose  bread 
and  butter  are  not  dependent  upon  tlieir  places, 
it  is  only  they  who  can  be  displaced  at  any 
change  of  administration  however  great.  And 
so  must  and  shall  it  be  with  us  when  we  assume 
national  control  of  the  railroads  and  telegraphs. 

Xo  political  party  could  by  any  possibility 
succeed  at  an  election  if  the  people  believed 
that  it  would  discliarge  railroad  or  telegraph 
employes  on  account  of  their  political  convic¬ 
tions.  All  parties  would  be  compelled  to  give 
unqualified  pledges  tliat  the  railway  and  tele¬ 
graph  service  should  be  wholly  unpartisan. 

There  are  several  important  branches  of  rail¬ 
way  business  in  whicli  our  railroad  corporations 
cannot  now  successfully  engage.  Express,  palace 
car  and  transportation  companies  now  transact 
mnch  legitimate  railroad  business  because  of 
the  conflicting  interests  of  the  different  railways. 
But  with  the  entire  railroad  system  owned  by 
the  Nation,  all  these  different  classes  of  railway 
business  could,  of  course,  be  successfully  con- 


92 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


ducted  by  the  national  government,  and  would 
add  materially  to  the  profits  and  advantages  of 
government  railways. 

There  are  many  rival  express  companies  en¬ 
gaged  in  business  over  American  railroads. 
They  have  competing  offices  in  nearly  every 
town.  The  government,  after  purchasing  the 
railways,  could  conduct  the  express  business  at 
far  less  than  its  present  cost.  Office  rent  would 
be  seldom  necessary,  as  the  postoffices  or  depots 
would  usually  furnish  the  necessary  room.  The 
services  of  express  employes  would  be  so  light¬ 
ened  that  their  hours  of  labor  could  be  greatly 
reduced.  Nearly  all  the  present  highly  salaried 
officers  of  the  different  riv^al  companies  could  be 
discharged,  as  the  business  could  be  managed 
by  the  railway  or  postoffice  departments.  As 
the  express  business  requires  comparatively  lit¬ 
tle  capital,  the  government  could  undertake  it 
at  only  a  slight  additional  expense,  and  could 
conduct  it  more  cheaply  and  pay  employes  bet¬ 
ter  than  at  present. 

A  committee  of  the  senate  of  the  United 
States  in  1874,  urged  congress  to  construct  a 
railroad  from  the  Mississippi  river  to  the  Atlan- 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


93 


tic  coast.  This,  however,  would  now  he  iinjnst 
to  railroad  corporations,  and  also  wasteful  and 
extravagant.  There  are  more  than  enough  rail¬ 
ways  to  carry  all  the  ti*affic  from  the  Mississippi 
to  the 'Coast.  The  government  should  purchase 
and  operate  all'  the  railroads  in  the  United 
States,  and  should  not  wrong  railroad  corpora¬ 
tions  nor  waste  our  national  wealth  by  construc¬ 
ting  such  useless  roads. 

By  properly  agitating  the  subject  we  ought 
to  be  able  to  obtain  national  control  of  all  the 
telegraphs  and  railways  of  the  United  States, 
within  the  next  five  years.  Every  convention 
of  either  political  party  should  be  urged  or 
forced  to  declare  in  favor  of  it.  It  is  the  most 
important  step  that  can  now  be  taken  towards  set¬ 
tling  the  industrial  problem.  No  other  politi¬ 
cal  question  is  of  equal  importance.  Our  rail¬ 
way  kings  must  be  dethroned. 


•*  .»i*l 


MIMRS  AND  MANUFAG- 

'  TURRS. 


y. 

As  soon  as  the  government  obtains  control 
of  the  telegraphs  and  railways,  the  wages  and 
condition  of  the  employes  will  be  permanently 
improved,  the  service  will  he  bettered  and  cheap¬ 
ened,  an  enormous  drain  upon  the  public  re¬ 
sources  will  cease,  and  much  of  the  corrupting 
intlnence  that  now  surrounds  onr  legislators  and 
public  ofiicials  will  for  everdisappear. 

Government  railways  and  telegraphs,  how¬ 
ever,  are  but  the  first  steps  in  the  complete 
solution  of  the  industrial  problem.  The  settled 
policy  of  the  Nation  should  thenceforth  be  to 
gradually  engage  in  other  'important  industries. 
The  advantages  to  be  derived  from  governmen¬ 
tal  control  of  the  railways  and  telegraphs  are 


96 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


few  compared  with  the  beneficial  results  of  the 
measures  that  should  be  next  adopted. 

In  order  to  successfully- operate  the  railways 
it  would  of  course  be  necessary  for  the  govern¬ 
ment  to  possess  extensive  repair  and  machine 
shops.  These  could  be  purchased  along  with 
the  railways  and  he  conducted  in  the  same  sys¬ 
tematic  manner  as  they  are  now. 

New  locomotives,  cars,  rails,  wire  and  other 
materials  would  be  constantly  needed  to  replace 
those  worn  out,  and  for  the  necessary  extension 
of  the  railway  and  telegraph  system.  As  we 
should  he  dependent  upon  private  enterprise  as 
little  as  possible  in  anything  so  important  as 
the  management  of  railways  and  telegraphs,  it 
would  be  very  desirable  for  the  government  to 
control  the  manufacture  of  railroad  and  tele¬ 
graph  materials. 

Many  of  onr  railway  companies  manufacture 
their  own  rolling  stock.  This  industry  would, 
of  course,  pass  into  the  hands  of  the  govern¬ 
ment  along  with  the  railways.  The  same  em¬ 
ployes  and  superintendents  would  be  retained 
in  the  government  employ,  and  the  business 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION 


97 


could  be  conducted  under  the  same  system  as  at 
present,  only  on  a  larger  scale. 

But  in  order  to  completely  manufacture  all 
the  necessary  locomotives,  cars,  iron  bridges, 
steel  rails,  car  wheels,  wire,  etc.,  used  in  rail¬ 
ways  and  telegraphs,  it  would  be  advisable  to 
have  iron  and  steel  works,  and  to  purchase 
enough  of  the  establishments  already  existing 
to  supply  all  the  government  wants.  More 
than  one-half  of  all  the  iron  and  steel  manufac¬ 
tured  in  the  United  States  is  consumed  by  our 
railways. 

According  to  the  census  of  1880,  the  capital  invested 
in  the  manufacture  of  iron  and  steel  was  $230,971,884. 
The  number  of  hands  employed  was  140,978.  The 
wages  paid  during  the  census  year  were  $55,476,785. 
The  value  of  the  materials  used  was  $191,271,150.  The 
value  of  the  products  was  $296,557,685,  which  left  a 
profit  to  the  manufacturers  of  $49,809,750  for  the  cen¬ 
sus  year.  Three  per  cent,  interest  on  the  capital  in¬ 
vested  would  be  $6,929,156.  This  amount  added  to 
half  the  wages  paid  and  the  result  subtracted  from  the 
manufacturers’  profits  would  leave  $15,142,197. 

The  government,  therefore,  could  have  pur¬ 
chased  all  the  iron  and  steel  works  in  the 
United  States  and  paid  three  per  cent,  interest 
on  their  cost,  and  also  have  raised  the  wages  of 


98 


THE  PEOPLE  S  PROBLEM 


the  one  hnndred  and  forty-one  thousand  em¬ 
ployes  hfty  per  cent,  and  yet  have  saved  to  the 
people  more  than  fifteen , million  dollars  in  a 
single  year  without  increasing  the  cost  of  the 
manufactured  products. 

Not  only  would  the  employes  he  far  better 
paid,  but  great  corrupting  influences  would  be 
removed.  When  those  establishments  are  oper¬ 
ated  by  the  government,  and  supply  the  tele¬ 
graphs  and  railways  with  the  necessary  locomo¬ 
tives,  cars,  machinery  and  materials,  there  will 
be  no  contract  system  and  fewer  opportunities 
for  jobbery  and  favoritism.  The  railway  and 
telegraph  managers  will  then  merely  work  for 
the  government  for  stipulated  wages  and  have 
no  opportunities  to  pass  on  bids  and  grant 
favors  to  private  contractors  and  manufacturers. 
Every  step  in  the  direction  of  governmental 
control  will  raise  the  wages  of  employes,  effect 
a  great  saving  for  the  public  and  diminish  the 
temptations  to  bribery  and  fraud.  What 
stronger  reasons  can  be  asked? 

It  would  also  be  exceedingly  desirable  for 
the  government  to  own  and  operate  coal  and 
iron  mines,  and  coke  ovens  enough  to  supply 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


99 


all  the  industries  under  governmental  control. 
Great  combinations  now  arbitrarily  advance  the 
price  of  coke  and  coal  and  pay  starvation  wages 
to  their  employes. 

If  all  the  coke  ovens  in  the  United  States 
had  been  operated  by  the  government  during 
the  census  year  the  interest  on  their  cost  could 
have  been  paid  and  the  employes  have  received 
fifty  per  cent  more  wages,  and  yet  the  govern¬ 
ment  would  have  cleared  or  saved  to  the  people 
four  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

Many  of  our  railroad  corporations  operate 
extensive  coal  mines.  This  business  also  should 
eventually  be  conducted  by  the  government. 
The  wages  of  miners  could  be  raised  and  the 
price  of  coal  reduced. 

In  1880  there  were  31,668  persons  engaged  in  the  pro¬ 
duction  of  iron  ore.  The  amount  of  capital  employed 
was  $61,782,287.  The  amount  of  wages  paid  during  the 
year  was  $9,538,117.  The  value  of  the  materials  used 
was  $2,896,011.  The  value  of  iron  ore  was  $20,470,756. 
Three  per  cent,  of  the  capital  is  $1,853,468.  This  amount 
added  to  the  value  of  the  materials  and  one  and  a  half 
times  the  amount  of  wages  paid  and  the  result  sub¬ 
tracted  from  the  value  of  the  product,  leaves  $1,414,102. 

If  all  the  iron  mines  in  the  country  there- 


100 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


fore  had  been  operated  by  the  national  govern¬ 
ment  in  1880,  the  interest  on  their  cost  could 
have  been  paid,  and  fifty  per  cent,  added  to  the 
wages  of  the  thirty-two  thousand  miners,  and  yet 
the  government  would  have  cleared  fourteen 
hundred  thousand  dollars  during  the  year  with¬ 
out  increasing  the  price  of  iron  ore. 

The  I^ation  still  owns  enough  mineral  lands 
to  produce  much  if  not  all  of  the  coal,  iron  and 
other  minerals  needed.  The  future  policy  of 
the  government  should  be  to  retain  the  owner¬ 
ship  of  such  lands,  or  when  selling  them  to  re¬ 
serve  the  right  to  buy  them  back  upon  repay¬ 
ment  of  the  original  purchase  price  and  the 
value  of  the  machinery  and  improvements. 
What  a  shame  it  is  that  individuals  or  corpora¬ 
tions  should  be  permitted  to  monopolize  the 
products  and  demand  exorbitant  prices  for  iron, 
tin,  coal,  oil,  natural  gas,  and  other  lavish  gifts 
of  nature  intended  for  the  common  benefit  of 
mankind ! 

As  soon  as  the  entire  railway  and  telegraph 
business,  mining,  manufacturing  and  all,  pass 
under  governmental  control,  it  is  easy  to  see 
how  the  wages  of  every  employe  could  be  raised. 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


101 


and  the  efficiency  of  the  service  increased;  how 
linndreds  of  millions  of  dollars  could  he  annu¬ 
ally  saved  to  the  piihlic,  and  how  nearly  every 
temptation  to  bribery  and  dishonesty  among  the 
managers  conld  be  removed. 

Onr  government  printing  office  is  a  credit 
to  the  Nation.  Its  work  is  remarkably  well 

C/ 

done,  its  employes  are  well  paid  and  never 
strike.  If  the  public  printing  were  done  by  pri¬ 
vate  enterprise,  there  would  be  a  continual 
temptation  to  bribe  onr  congressmen  and  offi¬ 
cials  in  order  to  obtain  exorbitant  prices.  Under 
the  present  system  there  are  no  such  opportuni¬ 
ties.  In  every  way  it  is  far  better  than  if  done 
by  private  enterprise. 

As  soon  as  the  orovernment  obtains  control 

o 

of  the  necessary  industries  for  properly  manag¬ 
ing  the  railways  and  telegraphs,  it  will  be  com¬ 
paratively  easy  to  mannfactnre  the  necessary 
materials  of  warfare  and  construct  naval  vessels. 
All  the  jobbery  and  corruption  supposed  to 
have  ever  characterized  onr  Navy  Department 
have  mainly  arisen  from  the  fact  that  the  govern¬ 
ment  did  not  construct  its  own  vessels  bnt 
allowed  its  officers  to  contract  with  individuals. 


102 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


thus  offering  every  temptation  for  poor  work 
and  corrupting  influences.  A  great  nation 
ought  not  to  be  dependent' upon  private  enter¬ 
prise  and  jobhery  to  supply  the  materials  of 
war.  They,  above  all  other  tilings,  sliould  be 
manufactured  by  tlie  orovernment. 

tJ  o 

These,  liowever,  are  not  the  only  industries 
that  have  been  controlled  by  nations.  In  France 
the  government  has  manufactured  matches  and 
tobacco  for  many  years.  The  business  is  con¬ 
ducted  in  the  most  economic  and  sys- 

«/ 

tematic  manner.  The  products  are  free 
from  adulteration  and  shoddy  workmanship, 
and  are  exactly  as  represented.  There  are  lu* 
bad  debts,  no  expense  for  advertising,  no  com¬ 
peting  traveling  salesmen,  no  idle  factories,  no 
over-production,  nor  any  other  waste  and  ex¬ 
travagance  which  necessarily  results  from  the 
competitive  system,  and  the  products  are  sold 
at  prices  that  would  defy  successful  competition. 
And  yet  the  result  has  been  that  those  em- 
ployes  are  the  best  paid  workmen  in  France. 
The  employment  is  steady  and  permanent  and 
eagerly  sought  after.  The  interest  on  the  cost 
of  the  workshops  is  paid,  and  yet  the  products  are 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


103 


sold  at  such  a  profit  that  is  expected  eventu¬ 
ally  to  wipe  out  a  large  part  of  the  national 
debt. 

There  is  no  reason  whatever  why  we  should 
not  take  national  control  of  those  industries 
with  the  most  beneficial  residts. 

The  manufacture  of  matches  in  the  United 
States  is  now  almost  completely  under  the  con¬ 
trol  of  a  single  combination. 

In  1880  the  amount  of  capital  invested  in  the  busi¬ 
ness  was  $2,114,850.  The  value  of  the  materials  used 
was  $3,298,562.  The  total  amount  of  wages  paid  dur¬ 
ing  the  census  year  was  $535,911.  4Tie  value  of  the 
products  was  $4,668,446,  leaving  the  manufacturers’ 
profits  at  $833,973,  or  nearly  forty  per  cent,  on  the  capi¬ 
tal  invested.  Three  per  cent,  interest  on  the  capital 
invested  would  be  $63,445.  This  amount  added  to 
twice  the  amount  of  wages  paid  and  the  sum  sub¬ 
tracted  from  the  value  of  the  products  leaves  $234,617- 

If  that  industry  had  been  carried  on  by  the 
government  the  wages  of  the  employes  could 
have  been  doubled,  and  the  interest  on  the  capi¬ 
tal  invested  could  have  been  paid,  ami  yet  the 
government  could  have  saved  for  the  people 
two  hundred  and  thirty-five  thousand  dollars  in 
a  single  year — enough  to  repay  the  entire  cost 


104 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


of  tlie  cajHtal  invested  in  less  tlian  ten  years. 

The  beneficial  effects  to  be  derived  from 
governmental  control  of  the  manufacture  of  to¬ 
bacco  wonld  be  greater  still. 

The  tenth  census  gives  the  number  of  persons  em¬ 
ployed  in  the  manufacture  of  tobacco  at  87,587.  The 
amount  of  wages  paid  was  $25,054,457.  The  value  of 
the  materials  used  was  $65,384,407.  The  value  of  the 
products  was  $118,670,166,  leaving  a  profit  to  the  manu¬ 
facturers  of  $28,231,302,  or  more  than  seventy  per  cent, 
on  their  invested  capital  of  $39,995,292.  Three  per 
cent,  interest  on  the  capital  invested  would  be  $1,199,- 
858.  This  amount  added  to  the  cost  of  the  materials 
used  and  double  the  amount  of  wages  paid  and  the 
sum  subtracted  from  the  value  of  the  manufactured 
products  leaves  $1,976,987. 

Under  national  control  these  eighty-seven 
thousand  workmen  could  have  had  their  wao:es 
doubled  and  yet  the  government,  after  paying 
till  •ee  per  cent,  interest  on  the  capital  invested, 
would  have  made  a  profit  of  nearly  two  million 
dollars  in  the  census  year  without  increasing 
the  price  of  the  manufactured  products. 

The  manufacture  of  salt  is  another  industry 
which  is  frequently  controlled  by  governments. 
The  object  has  usually  been  to  derive  a  great 
revenue  by  making  salt  unnecessarily  dear.  Our 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


105 


goveniineiit  could  control  the  industry  with  a 
far  nobler  motive.  The  census  of  1880  shows 
that  the  avei-age  wages  of  the  workmen  engaged 
in  making  salt  were  seventy-six  cents  a  day. 
If  onr  government  by  controlling  that  mannfac- 
tiire  could  materially  increase  the  wages  of  the 
employes  without  increasing  the  price  of  salt; 
that  is  certainly  a  sufficient  reason  for  engaging 
in  the  industry. 

The  amount  of  wages  paid  during  the  census  year 
was  ^l,3o5,o2o.  The  value  of  the  materials  used  was 
82,354,742.  The  value  of  the  manufactured  product 
was  85,291,222,  leaving  a  pro  tit  to  the  manufacturers 
of  81,531,460.  The  amount  of  capital  invested  was 
88,548,640.  Three  per  cent,  interest  on  that  amount  is 
8256,459. 

Under  national  control,  therefore,  the  interest 
on  the  cost  of  the  works  could  have  been  paid 
and  ninety-eight  per  cent,  added  to  the  wages  of 
every  employe  without  increasing  the  cost  of 
salt  to  consumers. 

All  the  industries  which  I  have  mentioned 
have  been  only  those  in  which  other  govern¬ 
ments  have  successfully  engaged,  and  which  I 
have  demonstrated  that  onr  Nation  could  un¬ 
dertake  without  doing  any  injustice  to  the 


106 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


present  owners,  and  yet  greatly  improve  the 
wages  and  condition  of  the  employes  and  be  a 
great  saving  to  the  public.  There  is, 
however,  no  I’eason  why  onr  national  govern¬ 
ment  should  not  gradually  engage  in  other  in¬ 
dustries  with  equally  beneticial  results. 

There  are  few  things  that  the  government 
conld  more  easily  and  advantageously  control 
than  the  manufacture  of  liquors. 

In  1880  there  were  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of 
liquors  in  the  United  States,  33,689  persons.  The 

amount  of  capital  invested  was  $118,037,729.  The 
amount  of  wages  paid  was  $15,078,579.  The  value  of 
the  materials  used  was  $85,921,374.  The  value  of  the 
manufactured  product  was  $144,291,243,  leaving  a  profit 
to  the  manufacturers  of  $43,291,290  for  the  census  year. 
Three  per  cent,  interest  on  the  capital  invested  is 
$3,541,131,  which  added  to  the  amount  cf  wages  paid 
and  subtracted  from  the  manufacturers’ profits,  leaves 
a  balance  of  $24,671,580. 

Under  governmental  control,  after  paying 
the  necessary  interest  on  the  capital  invested,  and 
doubling  the  wages  of  the  thirty-four  tlionsand 
employes,  the  government  would  have  made  a 
profit  of  twenty-five  million  dollars  during  tlie 

year—  enongli  to  repay  the  entire  cost  within 
five  years,  without  increasing  the  price  of 
liquor  to  consumers. 

Governmental  control  of  this  industry  would 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


107 


do  away  with  a  great  amount  of  jobbery.  Our 
“Whiskey  Rings”  have  been  a  national  dis¬ 
grace.  There  is  every  inducement  for  the 
liquor  manufacturers  to  bribe  inteimal  revenue 
officers.  The  whiskey  lobby  is  one  of  the  most 
powerful  in  Wasliington  and  often  attempts  to 
secure  favorable  legislation  from  congress.  The 
Brewers’  Association  is  also  a  wealthy  and  pow¬ 
erful  organization,  and  exerts  a  very  unwhole¬ 
some  influence  in  politics  and  legislation.  If 
the  manufacture  of  liquor  was  controlled  by  the 
government,  its  corrupting  influence  upon  poli¬ 
ticians  and  officials  would  wholly  disappear. 

Some  of  our  states  have  seriously  deliberated 
about  undertakino;  the  manufacture  of  school 
hooks  on  account  of  the  exorbitant 
prices  asked  by  school  book  combinations. 
That  is  a  move  in  the  right  direction. 
The  wages  of  the  workmen  can  be  raised 
and  the  price  of  school  books  lowered, 
and  the  public  will  save  the  enormous  profits 
that  have  hitherto  been  going  into  the  coffers 
of  the  publishers,  who  form  one  of  the  most 
powerful  syndicates  in  the  United  States  for  ob¬ 
taining  exorbitant  prices  for  one  of  the  necessi¬ 
ties  of  the  age. 

Why  should  we  allow  a  few  insignificant 


108 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


school-book  publishers  to  take  millions  of  dol¬ 
lars  every  year  from  the  hard-earned  savings  of 
the  poor?  And  a  similar  question  might  well 
be  asked  about  every  thing  we  are  compelled  to 
buy.  Why  should  we  allow  a  great  part  of  our 
annual  increase  of  wealth  to  flow  into  the  pock¬ 
ets  of  a  few  rich  capitalists  who  do  not  need  it, 
while  so  many  of  our  hard-working  citizens 
have  not  even  the  common  necessaries  of  life? 
Why  should  not  the  profits  be  saved  for  the 
])eople,  instead  of  the  capitalist  and  millionaire? 
It  is  a  crime  against  humanity,  when  under  a 
proper  system  of  distribution  there  would  be 
enough  for  all  and  to  spare,  that  any  innocent 
man,  woman  or  child  should  be  deprived  of  the 
commonest  necessities  of  life.  Any  measure 
should  be  adopted,  however  radical  it  may  seem, 
if  it  will  deprive  no  one  of  his  property  without 
compensation,  and  will  permanently  improve 

the  wages  and  condition  of  any  part  of  the 
human  race. 

There  are  still  other  industries  that  must 
pass  under  governmental  control  in  order  to 
give  permanent  relief  to  the  working  classes. 

I'he  last  census  states  that  147,956  persons  were  en¬ 
gaged  in  the  industry  of  sawing  lumber.  The 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


109 


amount  of  capital  invested  was  $181,186,122.  The 
amount  of  wages  paid  was  $31,845,974.  The  value  of 
the  materials  used  was  $146,155,385.  The  value  of  the 
manufactured  product  was  $233,268,729,  which  left  a 
profit  to  the  manufacturers  of  $55,267,370.  Three  per 
cent,  on  the  capital  invested  is  $5,435,583,  which  added 
to  the  amount  of  wages  and  subtracted  from  the  man¬ 
ufacturers’  profits  leaves  $17,985,813. 

If  the  inaiuifactiire  of  sawed  lumber  had 
been  conducted  by  the  government,  we  could 
have  paid  the  necessary  interest  on  the  capital 
invested  and  have  doubled  the  wages  of  the  one 
hundred  and  forty-eight  thousand  employes, 
and  yet  have  saved  eighteen  million  dollars  in  a 
single  year — enough  to  repay  the  entire  amount 
of  capital  invested  in  less  than  ten  years. 

Governmental  control  of  tliat  industry  would 
also  enable  us  to  restrain  the  terrible  waste  and 
destruction  of  American  forests  which  is  now 
going  on  with  frightful  speed.  The  Nation 
still  owns  millions  of  acres  of  timber  lands 
which  the  government  could  make  into  lumber 
and  sell  at  cost,  but  which  are  being  plundered 
by  corporations  and  sold  at  exorbitant  profits  to 
the  people. 

There  has  been  much  complaint  among  the 


110 


THE  PEOPLE^S  PROBLEM 


employes  in  onr  refineries  about  tlieir  wretched 
wanes  and  slianiefnl  treatment. 

In  1880  the  capital  invested  in  refining  sugar  and 
molasses  was  ^22,432,500.  The  amount  of  wages  paid 
was  $2,875,032.  The  value  of  the  materials  used  was 
$144,698,499.  The  value  of  the  manufactured  product 
was  $155,484,915,  leaving  a  profit  to  the  manufacturers 
of  $7,911,484.  Three  per  cent,  on  the  capital  invested 
is  $822,975.  This  amount  added  to  the  wages  and  sub¬ 
tracted  from  the  profits,  leaves  $4,213,477. 

The  government,  therefore,  could  have  oper¬ 
ated  those  refineries  and  paid  the  necessary  in¬ 
terest  on  their  cost  and,  without  increasing  tlie 
price  of  the  manufactured  products,  could  have 
doubled  the  wages  of  the  employes  and  yet  have 
saved  more  than  four  million  dollars  in  a  single 
year — enough  to  repay  the  entire  cost  within 
five  years. 

In  1880  there  were  engaged  in  all  kinds  of  woolen 
manufactures  161,557  persons.  The  amount  of  capital 
invested  was  $159,091,869.  The  amount  of  wages  paid 
was  $47,389,087.  The  value  of  the  materials  used  was 
$164,371,551.  The  value  of  the  manufactured  products 
was  $267,252,913,  leaving  $55,492,275  as  the  manufac¬ 
turers’  profits.  Three  per  cent,  interest  on  the  capital 
invested  is  $4,772,756,  which  added  to  the  amount  of 
wages  paid  and  deducted  from  the  manufacturers’ 
profits,  leaves  $3,330^432. 

Uncle  Sam  could  have  doubled  the  wages  of 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


Ill 


the  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  employes 
and  yet  have  saved  tliree  million  three  hundred 
tlionsand  dollars  during  the  census  year  by  hav¬ 
ing  conducted  the  manufacture  of  woolen  goods. 

In  cotton  manufactures  there  were  employed  185,- 
772  persons.  The  wages  paid  were  S45,614,419.  The 
value  of  the  materials  used  was  $113,765,537.  The  value 
of  the  manufactured  products  was  $21<'i,950,383,  which 
left  the  manufacturers  a  protit  of  $51,570,427.  Three 
per  cent,  on  the  capital  invested  is  $6,585,143  which 
added  to  one-half  the  amount  of  wages  paid  and  the 
result  subtracted  from  the  manufacturers’  profits, 
leaves  a  balance  of  $22,178,059. 

Linder  governmental  control  tliere  would 
have  been  twenty-tw^o  million  dollars  saved  to 
the  people  after  adding  fifty  per  cent,  to  the 
wages  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-tive  thousand 
persons  in  the  cotton  manufactures,  and  paying 
the  necessary  interest  on  the  invested  capital. 

In  the  census  year  there  were  engaged  in 
the  manufacture  of  men’s  and  women’s  clothinof 

O 

186,005  persons,  many  of  whom  are  most 
wretchedly  paid.  One  hundred  and  three 
thousand  of  them  were  women,  thousands  of 
whom  were  not  paid  wages  enough  to  allow 
them  to  decently  exist. 

The  amount  of  wages  paid  during  the  census  year 


112 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


was  $^52, 601, 358.  The  value  of  the  materials  used  was 
3150,922,509.  The  value  of  the  articles  manufactured 
was  3241,553,254,  leaving  a  profit  to  the  manufacturers 
of  338,029,387.  The  amount  of  capital  invested  was 
388,068,969.  Three  per  cent,  interest  on  that  amount  is 
32,642,009.  This  amount  added  to  half  the  wages  paid 
and  subtracted  from  the  manufacturers’  profits,  leaves 
39,086,699. 

Under  govern  mental  control  those  employes 
could  have  been  paid  fully  fifty  per  cent,  higher 
wages,  and  yet  have  left  a  profit  to  the  govern¬ 
ment  of  nine  million  dollars  for  the  census  year. 

Another  great  advantage  of  governmental  con¬ 
trol  of  these  branches  of  industry  is  that  all  goods 
will  be  well  made  and  be  just  as  represented. 
A  superintendent  who  turns  out  poor  goods 
will  lose  his  place,  and  a  government  employe 
will  have  nothing  to  gain  by  misrepresentation. 
Now  on  account  of  the  self-interest  of  manufac¬ 
turers  there  is  hardly  a  single  manufactured 
product,  whether  to  eat  or  drink,  or  use  or  wear, 
that  is  not  often,  if  not  usually,  misrepresented 
to  the  buyer.  Our  boasted  commercial  era  is  an 
acre  of  fraud.  In  g-overnment  manufactures  it 

^  O  O 

is  easy  to  see  that  shoddy  and  adulteration  would 
disappear,  for  all  temptation  would  be  removed. 

Another  effect  of  national  control  of  the 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


113 


clotJling  industry  would  be  that  fashions,  to 
some  extent,  would  necessarily  be  placed  under 
the  direction  of  the  government.  All  clothing 
mannfactnred  by  government  employes  would 
then  be  made  for  use,  and  healthfnlness,  and 
beauty,  and  not  alone  for  style.  Our  fashions 
would  not  then  be  set  by  disreputable  actresses, 
or  interested  milliners,  or  manufacturers,  or  by 
tliose  who  happen  to  occupy  a  particular  posi¬ 
tion  in  society,  irrespective  as  to  whether  they 
have  any  sense  or  taste.  But  the  government 
would,  whenever  possible,  select  competent  per¬ 
sons  expressly  for  their  taste  and  judgment,  to 
originate  at  proper  intervals,  fashions  that  should 
combine  utility  with  healthfnlness  and  beauty. 
The  government  would  have  no  object  in  bring¬ 
ing  out  new  and  outlandish  styles,  merely  to 
make  people  buy  goods  they  do  not  need,  which 
is  such  a  prevalent  practice  with  onr  manufac¬ 
turers. 

Fashion  is  a  despotic  and  whimsical  tyrant 
whom  we  all  abhor,  but  whose  commands  we 
must  obey.  It  decrees  that  clothing  must  be 
worn  that  always  endangers  the  health  and  often 
shortens  the  life  of  woman.  Ko  matter  how 


114 


.  THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


disagreeable,  extravagant,  outlandish  or  iinbe- 
coniing  its  costumes  may  be,  nevertheless  they 
must  be  worn.  Millions  pf  pretty  and  useful 
birds  have  just  been  wantonly  destroyed  because 
of  fashion’s  whims.  One  of  the  mercenary  ob¬ 
jects  of  those  who  set.  our  styles  is  often  to 
make  them  unnecessarily  expensive. 

It  is  vain  to  say  that  fashion  need  not  be 
followed.  Human  nature  seems  to  require 
somethiiip;  to  imitate.  It  is  often  more  neces- 
sary  for  those  of  moderate  means  to  obey  the 
comijiands  of  fashion,  than  for  those  who  can 
better  afford  the  luxury.  It  is  often  easier  to 
get  along  without  the  common  necessities  of 
life  than  without  the  luxuries  of  fashion.  Fash¬ 
ions  there  must  be;  so  instead  of  attempting 
to  abolish  or  deride  them,  we  should  endeavor 
to  have  them  properly  directed  and  controlled. 
Fashion  looks  like  a  small  thing  for  the  govern- 
merit  to  concern  itself  about,  but  there  are  few 
things  that  so  intimately  concern  the  public 
welfare,  and  stand  so  much  in  need  of  intelli¬ 
gent  direction. 

The  writer  realizes  the  fact  that  he  has  been 
treading  on  dangerous  ground,  and  that  the 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


115 


most  abject  slaves  of  fashion  will  most  bitterly 
resent  the  proposition  to  control  their  arbitrary 
tyrant.  The  subject  is  indeed  one  that  must 
be  handled  gently,  and  it  wiW  only  be  by  very 
gradual  changes  that  fashion  can  eventually  be 
subjected  to  responsible  control. 

Tliere  is  not  a  single  one  of  our  important 
manufacturing  industries  which,  under  govern¬ 
mental  control,  could  not  pay  its  employes  far 
better  wages  and  yet  cheapen  the  cost  of  the 
products  to  the  public.  The  boot  and  shoe  in¬ 
dustry  is  one  of  the  most  important  in  the 
country. 

In  1880  it  employed  133.819  hands.  Their  wages 
were  $5o.995.144.  Materials  ^114,966,575.  Value  of 
boots  and  shoes  made  $196,920,481,  leaving  a  profit  to 
the  manufacturers  of  $30,958,762.  Three  per  cent,  in¬ 
terest  on  the  invested  capital  $54,358,301  is  $1,630,749, 
which  added  to  one-half  the  wages  and  subtracted  from 
the  profits  leaves  $3,830,441. 

This  amount  would  have  been  saved  in  a 
single  year  under  governmental  control  after 
having  paid  the  one  hundred  and  thirty-four 
thousand  employes  fifty  per  cent,  more  wages 
than  they  actually  received. 

Governmental  control  of  the  manufacture  of 


116 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


agricultural  implements  is  of  great  importance 
to  farmers  as  well  as  employes. 

In  that  industry  in  1880  there  were  39,580  hands  em¬ 
ployed  to  whom  $15,359,610  were  paid  in  wages.  The 
value  of  the  materials  used  was  $31,531,170.  The  value 
of  the  implements  manufactured  was  $68,640,486,  leav¬ 
ing  the  manufacturers’  profits  at  121,749,706.  $62,109,- 
668  capital  were  invested  in  the  business.  Three  per 
cent,  interest  on  that  amount  is  |1, 863, 290  which  added 
to  the  amount  of  wages  paid  and  the  result  subtracted 
from  the  promts  leaves  $4,526,806. 

This  amount  would  have  been  cleared  by 
the  government  after  paying  the  necessary  in¬ 
terest  and  doubling  the  wages  of  the  employes. 
Of  scarcely  less  importance  will  be  the  fact  that 
all  machinery  will  then  be  well  made  and  not 
misrepresented.  No  new  machinery  will  then 
be  exposed  for  sale  until  it  has  been  thoroughly 
tested  so  that  it  will  give  complete  satisfaction. 
The  government  will  have  no  object  in  using 
poor  material  and  misrepresenting  the  merits  of 
its  manufactures. 

The  slaughtering  and  meat  packing  industry 
is  one  which  could  be  successfully  conducted  by 
the  government. 

In  1880  it  employed  27,297  hands  to  whom  $10,508.- 
530  wages  were  paid.  The  profits  of  the  manufacturers 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


117 


were  |25, 314.981,  which  were  more  than  fifty  per  cent, 
on  the  invested  capital  of  ^49.419,213.  Three  per  cent, 
interest  on  this  amount  is  $1  482,576,  which  added  to 
the  wages  and  subtracted  from  the  profits  leaves  $13,- 
323  875. 

This  would  have  been  the  profit  made  by 
the  government  after  paying  interest  on  the 
invested  capital  and  doubling  the  wages  of  the 
employes. 

The  milling  industry  should  eventually  be 
controlled  by  the  government. 

In  1880  the  amount  of  capital  invested  in  that  in¬ 
dustry  was  $177,361,878.  The  number  of  hands  em¬ 
ployed  was  58,487  to  whom  were  paid  in  wages  for  the 
census  year  $17,422,316.  The  millers’  profits  were  $46j- 
218,171.  Three  per  cent,  interest  on  the  capital  in¬ 
vested,  added  to  the  wages  paid  and  subtracted  from 
the  profits  leaves  $23,474,999. 

The  government,  therefore,  could  have 
doubled  the  wages  of  the  employes  and  have 
paid  the  necessary  interest,  and  yet  have  saved 
the  people  nearly  twenty-five  million  dollars  in 
a  single  year.  As  the  prices  to  be  paid  for 
wheat  would  p*obably  be  fixed  by  the  govern¬ 
ment,  a  principal  part  of  the  business  of  the 
boards  of  trade  would  be  gone,  and  it  would  be 


118 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


no  longer  possible  to  gamble  with  the  bread  of . 
millions. 

We  can  go  throngli  the  official  census  of  onr 
manufactures  and  see  that  under  governmental- 
control  evea’y  important  industry  could  pay  its 
employes  from  hfty  to  one  hundred  per  cent, 
more  wages  and  yet  effect  a  great  saving  to  the 
people  at  large. 

According  to  the  census  there  were  in  1880  in  the 
employ  of  the  diiferent  manufacturing  industries  in  the 
United  States  2,732,595  persons.  The  total  amount  of 
wages  paid  during  the  year  was  $947,953,795.  The 
value  of  the  materials  used  was  $3,396,823,549.  The 
value  of  the  manufactured  products  was  $5,369,579,191 
leaving  a  profit  to  the  manufacturers  of  $1,024,801,847, 
or  more  than  the  entire  amount  of  wages  paid.  The 
amount  of  capital  invested  was  $2,790,272,606.  If  the 
government  had  purchased  the  entire  manufacturing  in¬ 
terests  in  the  United  States  in  1880  and  paid  for  them 
in  three  per  cent,  government  bonds  the  annual  in¬ 
terest  would  have  been  $83,708,178.  This  amount  sub¬ 
tracted  from  the  manufacturers’  pro  (its  leaves  $941,- 
05^,669,  or  added  to  half  the  entire  amount  of  wages 
paid  and  the  result  deducted  from  the  manufactuerers’ 
profits  leaves  a  balance  of  $467,114,772. 

Under  governmental  control,  therefore,  with 
as  expensive  management  as  now  exists,  the 
necessary  interest  on  the  capital  invested  could 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


119 


have  been  paid,  and  yet  without  reducing  em¬ 
ployes’  wages,  we  could  liave  saved  nine  hun¬ 
dred  and  forty-one  million  dollars  during  the 
year;  or  fifty  per  cent,  could  have  been  added 
to  the  wages  of  the  two  million  seven  hundred 
thousand  employes,  and  yet,  without  increasing 
the  cost  to  consumers,  the  government  could 
have  saved  four  hundred  and  sixty-seven  mil¬ 
lion  dollars  in  a  single  year — enough  to  repay 
the  entire  cost  of  all  the  manufacturing  indus¬ 
tries  within  less  than  five  years.  Is  not  that 
reason  enough  for  assuming  governmental  con¬ 
trol  of  the  leading  manufactures  of  the  country? 

Of  eourse  the  government  will  not  purchase 
all  these  different  industries  at  once.  We  are 
not  yet  ready  for  it  and  will  not  be  until  the 
I^ation  OAvns  and  operates  the  railways  and 
telegraphs.  Then  the  government  will  gradu¬ 
ally  engage  in  manufactures  and  each  success 

will'niake  the  movement  go  on  with  ever  in¬ 
creasing  speed.  In  every  industry  that  the 
government  controls  the  wages  of  employes  will 
be  raised  and  the  price  of  the  products  lowered. 
The  producers  and  consumers  will  then  divide 
the  manufacturers’  profits. 

It  is  only  the  most  important  industries 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


that  the  government  will  first  take  up.  Manu¬ 
factures  that  are  well  centralized,  and  require 
much  capital  and  employ  much  labor  should 
first  pass  under  national  control.  The  small 
manufacturing  and  working  shops  generally 
scattered  over  the  country  can  still  be  left  to 
private  enterprise. 

As  each  industry  is  carried  on  by  the  gov¬ 
ernment  its  business  will  be  transacted  in  a  far 
simpler,  more  systematic  and  economic  manner. 
Linder  the  present  system  the  larger  the  busi¬ 
ness  and  the  more  nearly  a  monopoly  it  is,  the 
more  systematically  and  economically  it  can 
be  conducted.  Any  intelligent  manufacturer 
knows  that  he  could  pay  his  employes  far  better 
wages  and  sell  his  products  much  cheaper,  if 
he  had  a  complete  monopoly  of  his  kind  of 
business.  Every  intelligent  business  man  ap¬ 
preciates  the  terrible  waste  involved  in  compe¬ 
tition,  and  knows  that  if  he  were  given  the  ex¬ 
clusive  privilege  of  his  branch  of  business  he 
could  so  systematize  it  that  he  could  double 
the  wages  of  all  his  employes  and  yet  reduce 
his  prices  to.  the  public.  That  is  the  policy  the 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


121  * 


gov^ernineiit  will  pursue  when  it  obtains  control 
of  an  important  industry. 

The  same  managers  and  employes  will  be 
retained  in  the  service  but  will  work  for  the 
government  instead  of  private  corporations. 
The  business  can  be  conducted  in  the  same 
manner  as  it  is  now  except  far  more  systematic¬ 
ally  and  economically.  Each  particular  branch 
of  manufacturing  will  be  under  the  immediate 
supervision  of  a  competent  manager.  There 
will  also,  of  course,  be  a  general  superintendent 
of  all  the  manufactnriim  industries,  whose  du- 
ties  will  be  somewhat  s-imilar  to  those  of  the 
present  heads  of  the  different  departments  of 
the  government  and  who  will  probably  be  made 
a  member  of  the  President’s  cabinet. 

The  gradual  tendency  of  government  indus¬ 
tries  will  be  to  those  locations  where  nature  has 
made  the  most  bountiful  provisions  for  mines 
and  manufactures.  The  object  always  kept  in 
view  will  l)e  the  greatest  results  from  the  least 
labor.  Iron  and  coal  and  other  minerals  should 
be  mined  and  smelted  where  nature  has  stored 
them  most  accessible.  h^^ow  our  iron  mills, 
and  furnaces,  and  manufactures  are  often  loca- 


122 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


ted  hundreds  of  miles  from  where  they  ought 
to  be  because  of  extortionate  railroad  charges. 

Many  of  our  large  manufacturing  cities  have 
no  natural  advantages  whatever,  and  all  that 
makes  them  what  they  ai-e  is  the  caprice  of  for¬ 
tune  in  making  them  railroad  centres.  It  is  a 
self-evident  fact  that  manufacturing  of  all  kinds 
can  be  conducted  elsewhere  at  a  much  lower 
cost.  It  will  then  he  poor  business  manage¬ 
ment  for  the  government  to  do  at  one  place 
what  could  be  done  with  much  less  labor  else¬ 
where.  Under  the  present  system  as  shown  by 
the  tenth  census,  our  manufactures  employ  only 
one-third  as  much  water  power  as  steam  power. 
The  tendency  of  government  manufactures 
would  undoubtedly  be  to  employ  the  far  less 
expensive  water  power  whenever  possible. 

The  government  could  eventually  employ 
the  power  conveyed  from  Uiagara  Falls  to  do  a 
large  part  of  the  manufacturing  of  the  United 
States,  without  marring  the  beauty  and  grandeur 
of  the  Falls.  It  could  be  made  the  largest  city 
in  the  world  and  be  so  located  as  to  be  pro¬ 
tected  against  all  the  navies  of  the  earth.  Many 
of  our  seaport  cities  are  at  the  mercy  of  any 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


123 


naval  power  with  which  we  might  be  at  war. 
Modern  explosives  with  long  range  guns  conld 
easily  destroy  tliBin,  however  well  defended. 
TJiese  exposed  cities  have  been  hnilt  up  by 
means  of  onr  railroads,  mannfactnres  and  whole¬ 
sale  and  jobbing  houses.  Under  the  new  system 
our  most  important  cities  would  gradually  get 
to  be  inland  manufacturing  centers. 

Manufacturing  will  then  be  followed  prin¬ 
cipally  in  that  season  of  the  year  when  labor 
will  accomplish  most.  The  employes  wdll  he 
so  well  paid  that  when  the  mills  and  factories 
stop,  it  will  be  a  henetit  instead  of  an  injury. 
They  wdll  not  then  have  to  work  every  day  of 
their  lives  to  keep  the  wolf  of  starvation  from 
the  door.  They  will  work  few^er  hours  than  now 
and  their  frequent  vacations  they  can  spend  in 
getting  some  enjoyment  out  of  life.  The  work¬ 
ing  classes  will  not  then  think,  as  so  many  of 
them  do  now,  that  God  has  forgotten  and  left 
them  to  perish. 

There  would  an  increased  stimulus  in  the 
invention  of  labor-saving  machinery,  which 
would  then  be  a  blessing  to  the  working  classes 
instead  of  a  curse.  Now  a  labor-saving  macliine 


124 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


by  which  one  man  can  do  the  work  of  two, 
merely  enables  the  employer  to  discharge  the 
snpertlons  employe.  Under  the  new  system  the 
workman  will  not  be  discharged,  but  every 
labor-saving;  machine  will  both  shorten  the 
hours  of  labor  and  cheapeTi  the  products  to  con¬ 
sumers.  Workmen  will  also  have  more  time 
and  means  to  spend  in  inventing  new  machinery. 

Inventors  could  then  be  more  certain  of  a 
reward  than  now.  They  could  be  paid  a  pen¬ 
sion  for  useful  inventions,  or  a  reasonable  roy¬ 
alty,  and  they  would  not  be  defrauded  out  of 
the  results  of  their  toil  by  some  scheming  capi¬ 
talist,  as  they  aliuost  invariably  are  to-day.  It 
is  a  remarkable  case  when  any  considerable 
share  of  the  profits  of  an  invention  goes  to  the 
inventor.  A  superior  invention  is  often  bought 
np  and  kept  from  the  public  l)y  a  manufacturer 
whose  plant  would  be  damaged  or  rendered 
worthless  by  the  superior  quality  of  the  new  in¬ 
vention,  or  the  different  and  cheaper  method  of 
its  manufacture.  Under  the  new  system  every 

labor-saving;  invention  will  be  utilized  and  be- 
o 

come  a  blessing;  to  mankind. 

In  every  way  I  have  intentionally  under- 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


125 


rated  the  advantages  to  he  derived  from  govern¬ 
mental  control  of  the  leadino-  mannfactnres. 

O 

The  rate  of  interest  we  should  have  to  pay  on  their 
cost  would  be  much  less  than  three  per  cent. 
Our  three  per  cent,  bonds,  payable  at  our  op¬ 
tion,  sell  at  a  premium.  Without  doubt  we 
could  now  borrow  money  at  two  and  one-half 
per  cent,  on  government  bonds  running  from 
ten  to  twenty  years.  After  the  government  ob¬ 
tains  control  of  the  railroads,  telegraphs  and 
leading  manufactures,  there -will  he  few  oppor¬ 
tunities  for  the  investment  of  private  capital  in 
commercial  enterprises.  There  would  be  little 
demand  for  money  and  the  rate  of  interest 
would  he  greatly  reduced.  By  that  time,  in 
order  that  their  obligations  might  not  be  paid, 
capitalists  would  gladly  lower  the  rate  of  inter¬ 
est  to  two,  and  perhaps  even  as  low  as  one  per 
ceut.  The  saving  indhe  rate  of  interest  alone, 
over  the  foregoing  estimate  will  be  an  impor¬ 
tant  one. 

The  cost  of  the  manufacturing  industries 
would  he  much  less  than  I  have  assumed.  The 
capital  invested  ”  undoubtedly  includes  a  great 
deal  of  ^‘watered  stock”  issued  to  shareholders 


126 


THE  PEOPLE’S  PROBLEM 


without  any  consideration.  It  also  includes  a 
great  deal  more  capital  that  is  not  invested  in 
the  manufactures  themselves  but  is  used  in  the 
business  for  credits  to  customers,  purchase  of 
materials,  etc.,  etc.  We  have  no  means  of  de¬ 
termining  the  exact  amount  of  capital  actually 
invested  in  the  different  manufacturing  indus¬ 
tries  proper,  but  it  was  undoubtedly  many  hun¬ 
dred  million  dollars  less  than  I  have  assumed. 

Governmental  control  of  our  manufactures 
is  of  far  greater  importance  than  of  transporta¬ 
tion.  Government  railways  wdll  raise  the  wages 
of  five  hundred  thousand  employes,  and  save  the 
public  from  two  hundred  to  three  hundred  mill¬ 
ion  dollars  a  year.  Governmental  control  of 
our  manufactures  can  add  fifty  per  cent,  to  the 
wages  of  five  times  as  many  employes,  and  yet 
save  the  people  nearly  five  hundred  million  dol¬ 
lars  a  year. 

When  the  government  conducts  our  manu¬ 
factures,  not  only  will  the  employes  be  much 
better  paid  than  now,  but  a  far  greatea*  number 
of  men  will  be  employed.  Wages  will  be  so  in¬ 
creased  that  a  workman  can  easily  support  his 
family  without  being  compelled  to  use  the  wages 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


127 


of  his  wife  or  children.  Women  and  children, 
therefore,  will  not  need  to  work  in  these  indus¬ 
tries  unless  dependent  upon  their  own  earnings 
for  support. 

By  the  last  census  there  were  in  the  employ 
of  our  manufacturers  181,921  children,  and 
531,639  women.  One  hundred  and  seventy-live 
thousand  more  were  then  employed  than  in 
1870.  At  the  lowest  possible  estimate  there 
must  be  at  the  present  time  (June  1886)  more 
than  seven  hundred  thousand  women  and  chil¬ 
dren  engaged  in  manufactures.  Undoubtedly  half 
a  million  of  them  are  compelled  to  work  because 
of  the  insuliicent  wages  of  men.  To-day  there 
are  one  million  able-bodied  men  in  the  United 
States  who  can  not  find  employment.  If  our 
manufactures  were  under  governmental  control, 
at  least  one-half  of  these  idle  men  could  at  once 
be  furnished  work  in  the^place  of  the  women 
and  children  who  would  not  then  need  to  labor 
because  of  the  increased  wages  of  men.  Two 
hundred  and  fifty  million  dollars — one-half  the 
amount  saved  by  governmental  control  of  the 
manufacturing  industry  after  adding  fifty  per 
cent,  to  employes’  wages — would  also  furnish 


128 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


tlie  other  half  million  of  idle  men  with  employ¬ 
ment  at  five  hundred  dollars  a  year.  If  they 
were  given  work  in  the  manufactures  they  would 
add  nearly  a  fifth  to  the  number  of  employes  in 
1880,  and  therefore  the  hours  of  labor  could  be 
greatly  reduced,  or  by  working  the  same  num¬ 
ber  of  hours  they  could  manufacture  more  prod¬ 
ucts  without  extra  cost  to  consumers.  How¬ 
ever,  let  us  merely  assume  a  result  below  the 
lowest  possible  estimate, — that  the  products 
would  not  be  cheapened  to  consumers,  and  that 
governmental  control  of  the  manufacturing  in¬ 
dustry  would  only  add  fifty  per  cent,  to  the 
wages  of  evwy  employe,  and  furnish  employ¬ 
ment  to  one  million  of  idle  men,  and  materially 
reduce  the  present  hours  of  labor,  would  it  not 
be  well  worth  while  to  undertake  it?  The  ad¬ 
vantages  to  be  derived  from  governmental  con¬ 
trol  of  these  different  enterprises,  are  so  over¬ 
whelming  and  convincing  that  it  is  unnecessary 
to  state  them  as  forcibly  as  might  truthfully  be 
done. 

The  advantage  in  case  of  war  that  the  Nation 
would  possess  by  operating  the  railways,  tele¬ 
graphs,  mines  and  manufactures  would  be  pro- 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


129 


(ligions.  By  increasing  the  honrs  of  labor  in 
those  industries  one  hour  a  day,  the  same  work 
could  be  done  by  several  hundred  thousand 
fewer  employes.  In  this  way  vast  armies 
could  easily  be  raised  whenever  necessary  from 
the  government  industries  without  paying  any 
more  wages  than  before.  All  the  munitions  of 
war  could  be  manufactured  and  the  armies 
transported  by  the  government  without  any  ad¬ 
ditional  expense.  A  war  of  gigantic  proportions 
need  not  add  a  farthing  to  the  national  debt. 


DISTRIBUTION. 


YI. 

As  the  Nation  gradually  obtains  control  of 
manufactures,  the  necessity  for  the  present  whole¬ 
sale  and  jobbing  houses  will  disappear.  The 
manufactured  products  could  be  stored  in  fire¬ 
proof  buildings  at  a  few  commercial  centers  and 
thence  conveniently  shipped  where  needed. 
The  government  could  sell  directly  to  retailers 
for  cash  and  a  single^  agent  could  take  the  or¬ 
ders  for  an  entire  city.  jThere  would  be  scarce¬ 
ly  any  expense  whatever  compared  with  the 
present  system.  Estimating  the  margin  of  job¬ 
bers  and  wholesalers  at  fifteen  per  cent.,  their 
profits  on  the  manufactures  of  the  last  census 
year  were  eight  hundred  million  dollars  w^hich 
the  government  could  have  almost  wholly  saved. 
This  alone  would  have  paid  off  the  cost  of  all 


132 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


the  manufacturing  industries  of  the  United 
States  within  four  years. 

But  the  profits  of  wholesalers,  and  jobbers 
are  small  compared  with  those  of  retail  mer¬ 
chants.  There  is  no  reason  whatever  why  the 
national  government,  after  obtaining  control  of 
the  telegraphs,  railways,  mines  and  manufac¬ 
tures,  should  not  gradually  undertake  the  com¬ 
plete  distribution  of  its  products,  and  save  con¬ 
sumers  the  labor,  waste  and  profits  of  all  our 
superfluous  middlemen.  A  large  proportion  of 
manufactured  articles  cost  consumers  at  least 
twice  the  amount  our  manufacturers  receive  for 
them.  Superfluous  middlemen  exhaust  far 
more  of  the  resources  of  this  country  than  do 
all  the  great  monopolies  and  combinations  of 
whom  we  so  bitterly  complain.  More  of  our 
national  wealth  is  wasted  every  year  than  is  ab- 
sorbed  by  corporations. 

The  value  of  all  our  manufactured  products 
for  the  census  year  was  35,309,579,191.  At 
the  lowest  reasonable  calculation  more  than  fifty 
per  cent,  was  added  to  that  price  by  the  time 
they  reached  consumers.  The  profits  of  our  mid¬ 
dlemen  ai’e  often  greater  still.  It  is  commonly 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


133 


believed  that  we  aninially  spend  seven  linndred 
and  fifty  million  dollars  for  liquors.  Those 
inannfactnred  dnrino;  the  census  year  were  valued 
at  less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  million  dollars. 
For  the  products  of  this  industry,  therefore,  con¬ 
sumers  paid  nearly  five  times  the  amount  receiv¬ 
ed  by  manufacturers.  In  many  other  cases  the 
profits  are  nearly  as  great.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  therefore  that  our  middlemen  are  an  an¬ 
nual  di'ain  upon  the  resources  of  this  country  of 
more  than  three  billion  dollars.  There  is  noth¬ 
ing  that  our  T^ation  could  do  which  would  con¬ 
fer  such  an  unlimited  benefit  upon  all  our  peo¬ 
ple  as  to  take  complete  control  of  the  distribution 
of  the  products  of  our  mines  and  manufact¬ 
ures. 

The  waste  of  capital  and  labor  under  the 
present  system  is  enormous.  To  go  down  a 
single  business  street  in  any  town  or  city  and 
behold  the  useless  capital  invested  and  labor 
wasted  by  our  competing  middlemen  is  per¬ 
fectly  appalling.  In  an  average  city  of  a  few 
thousand  people  there  are  millions  of  dollars  in¬ 
vested  in  merchandise  and  business  lots  and 
buildings.  Hundreds  of  competing  clerks  and 


134 


THE  PEOPLE’S  PROBLEM 


tradesmen  are  continnally  waiting  to  display 
their  goods.  Scores  of  traveling  salesmen  are 
employed  to  sell  tliese  goods  to  merchants. 
Thousands  of  dollars  are  annually  spent  for  rents 
and  interest,  insurance  and  salaries,  and  all  these 
expenses  and  profits  are  added  to  the  manufact¬ 
urers’  prices  and  are  paid  by  the  unsuspecting 
public. 

In  the  United  States  the  entire  amount  of 
capital  uselessly  invested  in  business  blocl^s  and 
merchandise  can  only  be  imagined;  and  the 
amount  that  consumers  uselessly  pay  every  year 
for  rents,  interest,  insurance,expenses  and  prof¬ 
its  of  middlemen  can  only  be  estimated  by  bill¬ 
ions  of  dollars,  and  for  all  the  use  it  is  to  so¬ 
ciety  might  as  well  be  cast  into  the  sea. 

National  control  of  distribution  would  save 
tv7o-thirds  of  this  expense.  A  single  govern¬ 
ment  store  well  stocked  with  goods  could  sup¬ 
ply  an  entire  city.  Everything  could  be  sold  to 
consumers  for  cash  at  a  trifling  advance  over  the 
cost  of  manufacture.  Merchandise  could  be 
billed  to  the  government  merchants  at  a  fixed 
retail  price  at  which  to  be  sold,  and  peculation 
among  them  would  be  as  certain  of  detection 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


135 


as  it  is  \Fitli  onr  postmasters.  Government 
railways,  telegraphs  and  mannfactnres  will  save 
employes  and  the  public  one  billion  dollars  a 
year.  Government  stores  at  the  lowest  possible 
calculation  will  save  consumers  more  than  two 
billion  dollars  a  year. 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  therefore,  that  in 
addition  to  all  the  other  advantages  that  would 
result  from  governmental  control  of  these  dif¬ 
ferent  industries,  that  all  the  employes  of  the 
railroads,  telegraphs  and  manufactures  could  be 
paid  double  their  present  wages  and  manufact¬ 
ured  products  could  be  obtained  by  consumers 
at  nearly  half  their  present  prices. 

And  all  this  can  be  speedily  accomplished 
without  injustice,  confiscation,  bloodshed  or 
revolution.  The  Nation  can  pay  every  man 
whose  property  is  appropriated  for  the  public 
welfare.  Our  Goulds  and  Vanderbilts  may 
keep  their  millions,  but  their  power  over  their 
fellow-men  will  be  gone. 

I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  discuss 
the  legal  or  moral  aspect  of  taking  national 
control  of  these  different  industries.  I  assume 
that  society  has  a  right  to  protect  itself;  that 


136 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


when  the  ownership  of  any  kind  of  property,  or 
the  transaction  of  any  kind  of  business  by  in¬ 
dividuals  or  corporations,  becomes  injurious  to 
the  public  welfare,  society  has  a  perfect  right 
to  control  such  property  or  transact  such  busi¬ 
ness  itself. 

Compensation  should  of  course  be  made  for 
all  the  business  property  rendered  worthless  by 
national  control  of  distribution. 

The  .tenth  census  estimates  the  value  of  all 
the  residences  and  business  real  estate,  includ¬ 
ing  water  power,  in  the  United  States  at  less 
than  ten  billion  dollars.  This  estimate  of 
course  includes  the  real  estate  used  for  manu¬ 
factories.  Suppose  that  the  value  of  the  busi¬ 
ness  lots  and  buildings  used  by  our  middlemen 
represented  fully  one-half  of  the  total  amount. 
During  that  year  we  could  have  saved  enough 
to  pay  one  half  of  their  entire  value,  without 
having  increased  the  burden  of  consumers,  if 
the  different  industries  I  have  enumerated  had 
been  conducted  by  the  government.  By  pay¬ 
ing  employes  only  their  present  wages,  and  sell¬ 
ing  the  results  of  their  toil  at  the  present 
prices,  we  could  within  live  years  undoubtedly 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


137 


save  more  than  the  entire  value  of  all  these  in¬ 
dustries.  Of  course  this  will  not  be  done.  The 
employes  will  be  so  well  paid  and  their  prod¬ 
ucts  so  cheaply  sold  that  there  will  be  only  a 
small  margin  of  profit  for  the  government.  The 
price  we  pay  is  of  only  secondary  importance. 
The  government  must  control  the  manufactur¬ 
ing,  transporting  and  distributing  industries  of 
this  country,  be  the  cost  what  it  may. 

The  new  system  will  keep  as  few  as  possible 
employed  at  work  which  produces  nothing.  It 
is  opposed  to  the  first  principles  of  business, 
mathematics  and  common  sense  to  carry  on  an 
industry  in  such  a  wasteful  way  that  five  men 
must  be  continually  employed  and  paid  for  do¬ 
ing  one  man’s  work.  There  can  he  no  economy 
in  waste. 

x\lthough  a  vast  amount  of  useless  labor 
will  be  saved  by  national  control  of  distribution, 
there  need  be  none  thrown  out  of  work.  The 
superfluous  merchants,  clerks  and  salesmen  can 
all  be  employed  in  other  government  industries 
by  slightly  reducing  the  hours  of  labor.  Our 
superfluous  middlemen  and  their  employes  are 
now  paid  by  the  public  for  doing  what  amounts 


138 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


to  absolutely  nothing.  Undei*  the  new  system 
they  could  still  he  paid,  hut  would  produce 
something  for  the  public  in  return. 

Many  of  them,  however,  need  not  he  em¬ 
ployed  as  the  proceeds  of  their  property  pur¬ 
chased  by  the  government  would  easily  support 
them.  Every  one  dependent  upon  his  own 
earnings  for  a  livelihood  could  easily  he  given 
work.  As  the  wages  of  the  working  classes  are 
raised,  and  the  cost  of  their  products  lowered, 
more  will  be  consumed.  There  are  few 
of  us  who  would  not  purchase  twice  as  much  as 
we  do  if  we  only  thought  we  could  afford  it. 
The  more  we  earn  the  more  we  wdll  spend,  and 
the  cheaper  the  products  the  more  we  will  buy. 
Wc  would  have  purchased  ten  billion  dollars 
worth  of  manufactui’es  during  the  last  census 
year  if  we  only  could  have  done  so.  There  will 
he  work  enough  for  all. 

Every  business  man  should  desire  the  gov¬ 
ernment  to  control  the  manufacturing  and  dis- 
trihuting  industries  of  the  country.  He  often 
works  harder  and  spends  more  sleepless  nights 
than  his  employes,  and  does  not  for  that  reason 
fully  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  life.  Under  the 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


139 


new  system  he  could  be  engaged  in  some  con¬ 
genial  employment  for  which  his  business  ability 
fitted  him.  He  would  have  less  work  and  care 
and  could,  therefore,  enjoy  the  same  comforts, 
conveniences  and  luxuries  far  better  than  he 
does  now. 

How  no  matter  how  successful  a  business  man 
appears  to  be,  his  riches  are  apt  at  any  time  to 
take  to  themselv^es  wings  and  fly  away.  Sick¬ 
ness,  misplaced  confidence  or  unlucky  invest¬ 
ments  may  scatter  his  hard  earned  wealth,  and 
he  may  be  sent  to  the  poor  house  in  his  old  age 
and  be  buried  in  the  potter’s  field. 

Ten  thousand  business  men  are  financially 
ruined  every  year  in  the  United  States.  Hine 
inerchants  out  of  every  ten  are  said  to  fail. 
Would  it  not  be  infinitely  better  for  every  busi¬ 
ness  man  to  exchano-e  his  individual  business 

O 

interests  with  their  anxiety,  care  and  risk,  if  in 
return  he  and  his  children  after  him  were  sure 
to  get  congenial  employment  and  a  fair  share  of 
the  comforts  and  luxuries  of  life,  and  be  far  re¬ 
moved  from  want  and  penury  in  their  old  age? 

How  a  man  is  often  forced  by  circumstances 
into  business  that  he  dislikes.  It  is  usually  im- 


uo 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


possible  to  sell  unless  at  a  great  sacritice.  Often 
his  health  is  seriously  impaired  by  the  occupa¬ 
tion  itself  or  the  place  at  which  it-rnust  be  car¬ 
ried  on.  Under  the  new  system  the  busineoS 
would  be  owned  by  the  government  and  he 
would  be  merely  an  employe, and  if  the  place  or 
occupation  became  injurious  to  his  health  he 
could  easily  be  given  different  employment  else¬ 
where. 

Under  the  new  system  there  would  be  scarce¬ 
ly  any  appreciable  loss  by  fire  which  every  year 
burns  up  a  hundred  million  dollars’  worth  of 
work.  Most  of  this  loss  is  on  merchandise,  and 
business  buildings  often  nothing  but  fire-traps 
and  erected  in  the  most  exposed  situations. 
The  government  would  of  course  use  only  the  best 
and  safest  buildings  and,  whenever  necessary, 
would  construct  business  blocks  in  such  a  man¬ 
ner  and  at  such  places  that  there  would  be  little 
risk  from  fire.  As  the  Government  would  man- 

O 

ufacture  the  materials,  suck  buildings  would  of 
course  be  erected  without  the  intervention  of 
private  contractors. 

As  soon  as  the  government  obtains  control 
of  the  telegraphs  and  railroads,  and  the  mining 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION, 


141 


mannfactiirinor  and  distributino;  industries,  few 
opportunities  for  speculation  will  remain,  and 
no  enormous  fortunes  can  be  made.  one 

ever  became  rich  by  working  for  wages.  Few 
can  then  live  in  idleness  and  luxury  off  the  toil 
of  others.  In  order  to  enjoy  the  good  things  of 
this  life  they  must  be  earned.  If  a  man  will 
not  work  neither  shall  he  eat.  The  occupation 
of  our  boards  of  trade  will  then  be  completely 
gone. 

When  the  Nation  assumes  control  of  the 
manufacturing,  transporting  and  distributing 
industries,  there  need  be  little  if  any  drunken¬ 
ness.  The  government  could,  if  the  people 
thought  best,  manufacture  liquors  and  sell  them 
to  the  public.  No  adulterations  nor  poisonous 
ingredients  would  be  used.  No  liquors  need 
be  sold  to  minors  nor  drunkards,  nor  should 
any  one  be  permitted  to  spend  more  than  a  cer¬ 
tain  amount  for  drink.  The  public  houses  could 
be  closed  at  reasonable  hours  and  be  under  the 
complete  supervision  of  the  government.  Every 
restriction  as  to  the  sale  and  manufacture  could 
be  thoroughly  enforced,  as  there  would  be  no 


U2 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


inducement  for  government  employes  to  violate 
them. 

The  saloonkeepers’  greed  now  defies  all  re¬ 
strictions.  Prohibitory  laws  are  often  defeated  by 
the  will  of  a  determined  minority.  Under  the 
new  system  the  majority  would  rule.  If  they 
were  in  favor  of  stopping  the  sale  and  manufact¬ 
ure  of  any  or  all  kinds  of  liquor,  either  in  a 
single  state  or  territory  or  all  over  the  United 
States,  the  government  would  merely  cease  to  sell 
or  manufacture  the  prohibited  drinks,  and  prohi¬ 
bition  would  necessarily  result.  As  the  govern¬ 
ment  would  be  the  sole  manufacturer,  importer 
and  distributer,  it  would  be  impossible  to  violate 
a  prohibitory  law.  There  would  then  be  no  in¬ 
dividuals  or  corporations  owning  great  brewer¬ 
ies  and  distilleries,  or  dependent  upon  the  liquor 
trade  for  a  livelihood,  which  now  often  make  it 
an  absolute  necessity  for  them  to  violate  prohib¬ 
itory  laws  or  be  financially  ruined.  If  national 
control  of  the  manufacturing  and  distributing 
industries  should  accomplish  nothing  else  but 
this,  it  would  be  well  worth  while  to  undertake 
it.  Government  monopoly  of  the  manu¬ 
facture  and  distribution  of  intoxicating  liquor 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


143 


appears  to  be  the  only  permanent  solution  of 
the  temperance  question,  in  order  either  to  com¬ 
pletely  enforce  prohibition  or  restrictive  tem¬ 
perance  legislation. 

National  control  of  manufacturing,  transpor¬ 
tation  and  distribution,  will  render  revenue  laws 
unnecessary  to  a  great  extent  as  well  as  the 
present  enormous  waste  of  men  and  money  used 
in  their  attempted  enforcement.  The  govern¬ 
ment  will,  of  course,  import  all  desirable  prod¬ 
ucts  that  we  do  not  raise  or  manufacture.  No 
individuals  would  be  able  to  manufacture 
or  import  and  transport  and  sell  on 
their  own  account  any  productions  what¬ 
ever.  It  would  be  almost  absolutely  im¬ 
possible  to  violate  revenue  laws.  In  order  to 
keep  foreign  products  out  of  the  country  we 
need  not  enact  a  prohibitory  tariff  law,  and  keep 
thousands  of  officials  employed  in  our  custom 
houses  and  along  our  national  borders,  but  the 
government  can  merely  cease  importing. 

In  order  to  conduct  our  foreign  commerce 
the  Nation  would,  of  course,  purchase  or  build 
the  necessary  shipping.  This  would  then  be 


144 


THE  PEOPLHS  PROBLEM 


under  the  complete  control  of  the  government 
and  immediately  available  in  case  of  war. 

Instead  of  levying  taxes,  customs  and  in¬ 
ternal  revenue,  the  Nation  could,  whenever  nec¬ 
essary,  merely  add  a  certain  per  cent,  to  the 
selling  price  of  its  products  or  imports,  and 
thus  raise  all  the  revenue  desired,  without  the 
intervention  of  a  single  tax  collector  of  any 
kind. 

As  the  different  industries  gradually  pass 
under  national  control,  the  necessity  for  courts, 
and  laws  and  law-makers  will  rapidly  disappear. 
Nearly  all  our  civil  litigation  arises  out  of  the 
commercial  transactions  of  individuals  or  cor¬ 
porations  with  each  other.  Our  tradesmen  and 
our  telegraph,  railroad,  mining  and  manufactur¬ 
ing  corporations  probably  furnish  ninety-nine 
per  cent,  of  our  present  civil  litigation  which 
will  of  course  wholly  cease  when  these  industries 
pass  under  governmental  control.  There  will 
be  no  more  litigation  then  among  the  different 
government  industries  than  there  now  is  in  the 
postoffice  department.  Tliere  will  then  be  no 
more  occasion  for  government  employes  to  go 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


145 


to  law  than  there  now  is  for  fellow  workmen  to 
sue  eacli  other. 

But  they  tell  us  that  the  national  govern¬ 
ment  cannot  carry  on  business  with  success!  If 
that  be  true,  humanity  and  civilization  must 
perish  from  our  land,  for  there  is  no  other  sys¬ 
tem  under  Heaven  given  among  men  whereby 
the  weak  can  be  saved  from  the  clutches  of  the 
great.  That  the  government  may  make  many 
mistakes  I  admit,  but  that  it  cannot  conduct 
business  far  more  successfully  and  satisfactorily 
than  individuals  and  corporations  do  to-day,  I 
emphatically  deny. 

With  many  of  our  furnaces  and  factories 
closed  or  working  on  half  time;  with  a  million 
of  men  out  of  employment;  with  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  our  working  classes  paid  such 
wretched  wages  that  they  cannot  decently  exist; 
with  one  billion  dollars  wasted  in  the  construc¬ 
tion  of  the  Hickel  Plate,  West  Shore  and  other 
useless  railways;  with  a  large  proportion  of  the 
railroads  of  the  country  in  the  hands  of  receiv¬ 
ers;  with  billions  of  dollars  invested  in  useless 
business  blocks  and  merchandise;  with  a  hun¬ 
dred  million  dollars  annual  firewaste,  principally 


U6 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


on  business  blocks  and  merchandise,  which 
could  nearly  all  be  saved;  with  five  competing 
manufacturers  and  tradesmen  doing  what  could 
often  be  better  done  by  one;  with  all  this  use¬ 
less  waste  of  labor  and  capital  under  the  present 
system,  does  it  not  rather  look  as  if  the  govern¬ 
ment  could  not  under  any  possibility  whatever 
conduct  business  half  as  wastefully  and  extrava¬ 
gantly  as  individuals  and  corporations  do  to-day? 
Instead  of  wondering  why  there  is  so  much  pov¬ 
erty,  vice  and  crime  in  the  world  to-day,  does  it 
not  seem  strange  that  there  is  not  infinitely 
more? 

The  most  perfect  system  of  society  presents 
the  least  temptation  to  do  wrong  and  the  great¬ 
est  inducement  to  do  right.  Now  we  are  be¬ 
set  on  every  hand  by  temptations  of  the  most 
powerful  kind.  The  capitalist  is  tempted  to 
pay  starvation  wages  to  his  employes.  The 
manufacturer  is  tempted  to  misrepresent  his 
products,  and  the  merchant  his  merchandise.  It 
is  to  every  man’s  interest  to  overreach  his  neigh¬ 
bor  in  trade.  Liquor  sellers  are  tempted  to  dis¬ 
obey  all  temperance  laws.  Kailway  corporations 
are  tempted  to  disobey  railroad  laws.  Importers 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


147 


and  liquor  manufacturers  are  tempted  to  perjure 
themselves  and  to  bribe  custom-house  and  inter¬ 
nal  revenue  officials.  Kailroad  corporations  are 
tempted  to  corrupt  our  courts,  legislatures  and 
boards  of  aldermen.  Our  legislators  are  exposed 
to  the  greatest  temptation  in  making  laws,  our 
judges  in  interpreting  them  and  our  officers  in 
enforcing  them.  In  other  words,  society  makes 
laws  for  us  to  obey  and  its  arrangements  offer 
the  greatest  inducements  for  us  to  disobey.  We 
will  always  choose  the  good  unless  there  are 
greater  inducements  held  out  to  choose 
the  bad.  Few  of  us  would  deliberately  break 
the  law  unless  we  thought  the  breaking  would 
pay  us  better  than  the  keeping  of  it.  Few  of  us 
can  withstand  great  temptation,  and  when  society 
allows  to  be  placed  before  us  unnecessary  temp¬ 
tations  that  we  cannot  resist,  society  itself  is  not 
free  from  blame  when  we  fall.  When  the  gov¬ 
ernment  operates  the  railroads  and  telegraphs 
and  conducts  the  mining,  manufacturing  and 
distributing  industries,  all  the  temptations  and 
crimes  I  have  enumerated  will  disappear. 
Speculation  in  options  is  the  cause  of  nearly  all 
embezzlements.  With  these  different  industries 


148 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


under  national  control,  they  will  afford  no 
opportunities  for  speculation,  and  a  breach  of 
trust  will  be  of  rare  occurrence. 

Robbery  and  theft  would  be  greatly  dimin¬ 
ished  ;  they  are  often  the  result  of  poverty. 
When  the  wages  of  the  working  classes  are  ma¬ 
terially  improved  and  the  idle  furnished  with 
work,  it  will  be  easier  to  earn  a  living  than  to 
steal  one.  There  will  be  little  temptation  to 
rob  when  every  citizen  has  enough  and  to  spare. 

“  ’Tis’n  them  as  ’as  munny  as  breaks  into  ’ouses  an’ 
steals, 

Them  as  ’as  coats  to  their  backs  and  takes  their  regu¬ 
lar  meals; 

Noa,  but  its  them  as  niver  knaws  wheer  a  meal’s  to  be 
’ad.” 

The  social  evil  will  be  lessened.  It  will  be 
much  easier  to  earn  a  living,  and  early  marriages 
will  be  more  frequent.  Row,  many  young  men 
have  to  work  for  years  before  they  can  afford  to 
marry.  “Statistics  prove  beyond  a  doubt  that 
most  fallen  women  have  been  compelled  to  fall 
by  their  poverty.”  Woman  would  no  longer  be 
treated  as  an  inferior  being.  Her  wages  would 
be  increased,  and  the  Held  for  her  employment 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


149 


broadened.  Woman  has  ev^en  more  than  man  to 
gain  by  a  change  in  our  industrial  system. 

The  Social  System  is  the  only  solution  of  the 
Industrial  Problem.  Other  measures  may  give 
temporary  relief — this  alone  will  cure.  But  we 
must  be  patient.  It  can  not  all  be  done  at 
once,  but  will  take  years  for  its  complete  ac¬ 
complishment.  The  national  government  will 
first  purchase  and  operate  the  railways  and  tel¬ 
egraphs,  and  then  gradually  engage  in  the  other 
industries.  Every  step  in  that  direction  will 
give  permanent  relief.  This  can  all  be 
brought  about  within  the  next  decade.  If  the 
working  classes  will  vote  for  political  parties  and 
congressional  candidates  pledged  in  favor  of 
national  purchase  and  operation  of  the  railroads 
and  telegraphs,  it  will  be  done.  The  Labor 
Question  must  be  forced  into  politics  before  it 
can  be  settled.  The  ballot  and  discussion  are 
the  only  weapons  to  employ.  Other  means 
must  not  be  used.  The  agitators  who  resort  to 
dynamite  and  bloodshed  are  the  worst  enemies 
the  movement  has  to  fear.  The  great  majority 
of  mankind  have  been  held  in  virtual  slavery 
for  ages  and  should  certainly  be  willing  to  wait 


150 


THE  PEOPLE’S  PROBLEM 


a  few  years  more  in  order  to  leave  the  land  of 
bondage  and  have  their  chains  of  slavery  for¬ 
ever  broken, 

A  resort  to  violence  and  bloodshed  makes 
the  people  in  their  fear  and  anger  forget  the 
real  grievances  of  labor.  It  is  only  peaceably 
and  step  by  step  that  the  wrongs  of  the  work¬ 
ing  classes  can  be  righted.  A  bloody  revolu¬ 
tion  wonld  retard  the  cause  for  ages.  We  must 
not  wage  war  against  capital,  inventions,  labor- 
saving  machinery  and  great  industrial  enter¬ 
prises,  bnt  w^e  must  own  and  use  them.  Co¬ 
operation  on  a  i^ational  scale  with  every  citizen 
an  equal  partner  and  financially  and  patriotic¬ 
ally  interested  in  the  success  of  these  different 
industries — that  alone  will  right  the  wrongs  of 
labor.  As  the  Co-operative  or  Social  System  is 
extended,  society  wdll  gradually  become  a  single 
family  in  which  all  men  are  brothers.- 

If  yon  love  yonr  God  and  fellow-man,  then 
help  to  bring  about  this  golden  age.  It  will 
heal  the  broken  hearted  and  bring  the  gospel  to 
the  poor  and  deliverance  to  the  captive.  There 
is  no  other  reform  in  the  world’s  history  that 
can  be  compared  wdth  it.  It  is  the  grandest 
cause  fhat  ever  enlisted  the  support  of  man. 
The  fields  are  wdiite  already  to  harvest.  The 
Day  of  the  Common  People  is  at  hand. 


THR  DAKOTA  PIaAN. 


YII. 


Thronglioiit  the  United  States  to-day  we 
have  the  worst  state  and  nuinicipal  government 
on  the  face  of  the  earth.  There  is  scarcely  a  legis¬ 
lature  in  the  land  that  is  not  honey-combed  with 
corruption.  The  rottenness  and  iniquity  of 
municipal  misgovernment  in  our  largest  cities 
is  a  disgrace  to  civilization. 

Theoretically  our  legislators  and  aldermen 
are  our  servants,  but  practically  they  are  our 
masters  and  can  act  regardless  of  our  wishes. 
All  we  can  do  is  to  defeat  them  at  the  next 
election  and,  perhaps,  put  worse  ones  in  their 
place.  One  legislature  or  board  of  aldermen 
sells  itself  to  the  railroads,  and  we  thereupon 
indignantly  elect  another,  which  deliberately 
does  the  same  thing  over  again. 

The  ordinary  form  of  representative  govern- 


152 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


iiient  has  proved  a  failure.  Representatives  are 
beyond  the  reach  of  their  constituents  who  retain 
no  veto  power. 

For  years  our  constitution-niakers'have  been 
devising  means  to  check  the  power  of  corrupt 
and  extravagant  and  careless  legislatures,  but 
the  result  has  bee7i  that  they  are  steadily  grow¬ 
ing  worse,  until  a  session  of  the  average  state 
legislature  is  a  public  calamity.  ‘‘When  the 
legislature  meets,  the  people  tremble,  and  when 
it  adjourns  the  people  rejoice.”  With  all  the 
provisions  adopted  of  late  years,  fettering  our 
legislatures  and  embarrassing  their  actions, 
there  has  been  no  effectual  prevention  of  legisla¬ 
tive  carelessness,  jobbery  and  extravagance. 
There  is  scarcely  a  single  constitutional  restric¬ 
tion  of  any  state  legislature  that  is  not  continu¬ 
ally  evaded  and  absolutely  w^orthless.  Repre¬ 
sentative  lawmaking  may  have  been  all  right  in 
former  times  when  possibly  the  people  were  too 
ignorant  to  know  what  laws  they  needed,  and 
when  there  were  no  private  interests  great  enough 
to  make  it  possible  or  profitable  to  bribe  legisla¬ 
tures.  But  to-day,  wdth  the  great  intelligence  of 
the  common  people,  the  only  excuse  for  depu- 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


153 


tized  law-making  has  disappeared,  and  with  the 
enormous  commercial  and  railroad  interests  of 
the  countiy  spending  millions  of  dollars  every 
year  in  bribing  our  legislatures,  representative 
law-making  has  become  one  of  the  greatest  evils 
of  the  age.  The  older  and  wealthier  the  state 
or  city,  the  more  venal  and  corrupt  its  legislators 
and  aldermen  become. 

The  common  remedy  suggested  is  that  we 
must  elect  better  men  to  represent  us  in  our  leg¬ 
islatures  and  boards  of  aldermen.  But  there  is 
only  One  who  can  look  into  the  heart  of  man 
and  know  what  he  will  do  when  temptation  is 
placed  before  him.  The  corrupting  influences 
that  surround  our  legislators  and  aldermen  are 
greater  and  harder  to  resist  than  in  any  other 
station  in  life.  Their  necessities  are  usually 
great  and  their  salaries  small.  In  such  a  posi¬ 
tion  a  man  can  be  bought  almost  without  know¬ 
ing  it.  It  is  easy  to  persuade  himself  that  he 
is  entitled  to  more  compensation  for  his  services 
and  necessary  expenses  than  the  insigniflcant 
salary  he  receives  and  that  the  proposed  bill  is 
a  nood  one  and  that  his  constituents  will  lose 

O 

nothing  even  if  he  is  paid  for  supporting  it. 


154 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


Ill  fact  he  may  even  imagine  that  he  is  not  bribed 
but  that  he  is  conferring  a  favor  npon  the  pub¬ 
lic  by  voting  for  the  bill.  Many  whom  money 
conhl  not  hny  will  support  improper  legisla¬ 
tion  throngh  considerations  of  friendship  or 
the  promise  of  political  support.  There 
are  also  many  who  get  into  the  legislature  or 
city  council  in  order  to  make  all  the  money  they 
can  ont  of  their  positions  and  who  do  not  ex¬ 
pect  a  re-election. 

The  true  solution  of  the  problem  is  not  to 
reform  human  nature,  nor  to  demand  that  we 
must  know  the  hearts  of  onr  representatives  as 
well  as  the  God  who  made  them;  but  it  is  to 
remove  from  onr  legislators  and  aldermen  as  far 
as  possible  all  temptation  to  do  wrong,  by 
taking  away  from  them  the  power  to  enact  cor¬ 
rupt  laws  and  to  make  extravagant  and  log-roll¬ 
ing  appropriations. 

If  important  laws  had  to  be  submitted  to  the 
people  for  approval,  our  legislators  would  never 
think  of  proposing  the  jobbery  and  disgraceful 
leorislation  that  'have  characterized  the  law- 
makers  of  every  state  in  the  Union. 

This  the  writer  believes  to  be  the  only 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


155 


immediate  solution  of  the  problem.  In  the 
Northwest  it  lias  become  popularly,  though 
improperly,  known  as  the  “Dakota  Plan.”  Its 
accurate  name  is  the  iTfevendum.  The  lead¬ 
ing  idea  is  that  all  extraordinary  appropriations, 
and  all  laws  of  general  interest  to  the  public, 
should  be  di-afted  by  the  legislature  and  sub¬ 
mitted  to  the  people  for  approval.  The  legisla¬ 
ture  may  be  given  the  power  to  make  appropri- 
*ations  for  the  ordinary  running  and  incidental 
expenses  of  the  state  and  its  public  institutions, 
and  to  enact  the  necessary  laws  of  a  local,  spe¬ 
cial  or  private  natui*e  that  cannot  well  be  pro¬ 
vided  for  by  general  acts  and  are  not  of  interest 
to  the  general  public,  though  even  these  could 
be  submitted  to  the  people  if  desired.  But  all 
important  legislation  of  general  interest,  and 
particnlaly  all  especially  affecting  corporations, 
should  be  prepared  by  the  legislatui-e  and  sub¬ 
mitted  to  the  people  to  enact  or  reject.  The 
proposed  laws  would,  of  course,  be  published 
for  several  weeks  or  months  before  being  voted 
on  so  that  there  would  be  ample  time  for  a  full 
discussion  of  their  merits.  They  could  be  sep¬ 
arately  numbered  or  entitled  and  ballots  could 


156 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


be  SO  printed  that  the  people  at  one  election 
conld  easily  vote  for  or  against  any  or  all  of  the 
submitted  laws. 

It  is  possible  that  such  legislatures  might 
occasionally  be  bribsd  not  to  submit  laws  de¬ 
manded  by  the  people.  But  there  is  scarcely  a 
legislature  in  the  land,  which  through  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  corporations,  does  not  refuse  to  pass 
laws  demanded  by  the  people.  Under  this  plan 
a  good  law  once  enacted  would  remain  in  force 
until  repealed  by  the  people,  and  for  the  enact¬ 
ment  of  bad  laws  they  would  have  no  one  to 
blame  but  themselves.  Even  if  such  a  legisla¬ 
ture  were  bribed  it  could  accomplish  nothing 
except  to  delay  till  another  election  the  submis¬ 
sion  of  laws  demanded  by  the  people,  for  it 
could  of  itself  enact  no  bad  ones.  And  certainly 
that  would  be  infinitely  better  than  the  present 
system  which  permits  any  legislature  to  make 
the  most  corrupt  laws  and  extravagant  appro¬ 
priations  which  the  people  have  no  power  to  re¬ 
ject. 

The  educating  influence  of  the  proposed 
system  cannot  be  over-estimated.  It  will  make 

c/ 

every  citizen  take  a  personal  interest  in  public 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


]o7 

affairs.  He  will  necessarily  be  made  familiar 
with  the  laws  and  to  a  great  extent  with  his  le¬ 
gal  rights.  Laws  will  have  to  be  framed  as 
nearly  as  possible  so  that  they  cannot  be  misun¬ 
derstood.  Now  it  is  often  impossible  to  even 
imacrine  what  onr  lawmakers  were  thinkino-  of 

o 

when  they  enacted  so  mnch  of  onr  imperfect 
legislation.  Nearly  every  legislature  is  now 
compelled  to  waste  a  great  deal  of  time  in  at¬ 
tempting  to  remedy  the  blunders  and  mistakes 
of  its  predecessor.  In  a  vast  number  of  cases 
the  leorislators  themselves  do  not  know  what 

O 

their  laws  are  intended  to  mean  nor  even  what 
bills  they  have  passed. 

The  deliberations  of  a  constitutional  conven¬ 
tion  should  be  convincing  proof  that  im¬ 
portant  laws  should  be  submitted  to  the  people 
for  approval.  The  members  carefully  examine 
every  word  and  phrase  of  the  proposed  consti¬ 
tution,  for  they  know  that  it  will  be  subjected 
to  the  most  searching^  criticism  and  will  be  voted 
down  if  imperfect  or  tainted  with  corruption. 
The  constitutions  of  onr  different  states  are  free 
from  defects  and  jobbery  and  satisfactory  to  the 
people,  and  the  sole  reason  is  because  they  have 


158 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


to  be  approved  at  the  ballot-box.  If  our  cou- 
stitutional  conventions  could  absolutely  adopt 
constitutions  without  the  consent  of  the  people, 
such  gatherings  would  be  rascals’  harvests  and 
our  constitutions  would  be  as  bad  as  our  laws. 
And  just  as  carefully  and  conscientiously  will 
our  legislators  examine  their  bills  when  impor¬ 
tant  measures  have  to  be  submitted  to  the  peo¬ 
ple  for  approval.  There  is  not  a  single  argu¬ 
ment  against  allowing  the  people  to  enact  their 
own  laws,  that  is  not  an  equally  good  objection 
to  their  adopting  a  constitution. 

Our  recent  state  constitutions  are  more  com¬ 
plicated  and  voluminous  than  all  the  important 
laws  passed  by  an  average  legislature.  If  the 
people  can  be  trusted  to  adopt  a  constitution 
they  certainly  can  be  trusted  to  enact  their  laws. 
If  they  are  competent  to  select  representatives 
to  make  laws  they  are  certainly  competent  to 
say  whether  they  want  the  laws  so  made.  If 
the  people  know  enough  to  earn  their  money 
they  surely  know  how  it  should  be  spent  by 
their  public  servants. 

It  is  the  hard-earned  savings  of  the  people 
that  our  legislators  invariably  squander.  Wliy 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


159 


should  not  the  people  have  something  to  say  as 
to  how  their  money  should  he  spent?  It  is  the 
people  who  have  to  obey  the  laws,  and  why 
should  they  not  he  allowed  to  say  what  laws 
they  want  to  obey?  I  have  nnlimited  faith  in 
the  common  sense  and  common  honesty  of  the 
common  people.  They  know  what  laws  they 
need  better  than  any  one  man  or  any  set  of  men. 
The  people  always  know  more  than  rulers. 

Whether  every  proposed  law  wonld  be  read 
by  every  voter  or  not  makes  no  difference.  The 
lawyers  and  editors  and  many  other  people 
wonld  read  them  and  bad  bills  wonld  be  dis¬ 
cussed  and  therefore  rejected  at  the  ballot-box. 
If  the  proposed  laws  were  all  right  it  wonld 
make  no  difference  if  only  a  few  votes  were 
cast.  But  if  any  were  bad  the  people  wonld 
turn  out  en  masse  and  vote  against  them. 
What  is  more  important  than  the  power  to  enact 
good  laws  is  the  ability  to  prevent  bad  ones. 

Such  a  system  would  be  a  genuine  democ¬ 
racy  in  which  the  people  wonld  in  reality  rule 
themselves.  Instead  of  tending  towards  Ceesar- 
ism  and  tyranny,  as  many  leading  newspapers 
have  suggested,  the  tendency  is  decidedly  the 


160 


THE  PEOPLE  S  PROBLEM 


reverse,  for  it  takes  away  from  tlie  legislature 
its  most  important  power  and  gives  it  back  to 
to  the  people.  From  a  law-enacting  body  the 
legislature  would  be  transformed  into  a  mere 
committee  to  frame  laws  for  the  people  to  pass 
upon.  It  might  also  be  described  as  vesting 
the  lawmaking  power  in  two  houses — the  lower- 
house  the  people,  and  the  upper  house  the  leg¬ 
islature,  with  whom  all  bills  must  originate. — 
It  is  commonly  believed  that  the  larger  the  law¬ 
making  body  the  nearer  it  is  to  the  people  and 
the  less  corrupt  it  becomes.  Under  this  plan 
every  voter  would  be  a  member  of  the  legisla¬ 
ture  and  the  chance  of  corrupting  a  majority  of 
them  would  be  very  small  indeed.  It  is  not 
that  they  are  better  than  their  representatives, 
that  the  temptation  to  be  dishonest  and  extrava¬ 
gant  is  i-emoved.  One  man  can  he  tempted  to 
rob  another,  but  not  himself.  The  people  would 
have  notliing  to  gain  by  voting  for  corrupt  leg¬ 
islation.  The  only  way  to  get  bad  laws  enacted 
would  be  to  deceive  the  people.  This  would  be 
extremely  difficult  as  there  will  always  be  some 
who  are  able  and  willing  to  expose  corruption. 

The  Dakota  Plan  bears  little  j-esemblance  to 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


161 


the  ancient  democratic  inetliods  nnder  which 
the  people  all  met  together  and  enacted  their 
laws,  immediately  after  listening  to  passionate 
harangues.  The  laws  submitted  by  the  legis-, 
lature  will  be  before  the  people  weeks  or  months 
and  public  measures  will  l)e  discussed  at  the 
family- fireside,  in  the’ shop  and  counting  house, 
and  the  decision  at  the  ballot-box  will  reflect 
the  solid,  deliberate  judgment  of  the  people. 

It  would  of  course  require  an  amendment  to 
a  state  constitution  in  order  to  authorize  or  com¬ 
pel  a  legislature  to  submit  laws  to  the  people 
for  approval.  Then  any  law  the  people  enact 
]nust  be  obeyed,  and  their  wishes  will  not  be 
thwarted,  as  they  often  are  to-day,  by  laws  be¬ 
ing  pronounced  unconstitutional.  Now  the 
courts  spend  much  of  their  time  in  passing  upon 
the  constitutionality  of  legislative  acts,  but 
under  this  plan  that  kind  of  litigation  would 
wholly  disappear. 

There  are  but  two  provisions  in  the  United 
States  constitution  affecting  the  adoption  of 
this  plan  by  any  state:  First,  United  States  sen¬ 
ators  must  be  elected  by  the  state  legislatures. 
This  would  of  course  continue  to  be  the  case 


162 


THE  PEOPLES  PROBLEM 


under  the  proposed  change.  Second,  congress 
shall  guarantee  each  state  a  repnhlican  form  of 
government.  This  nndonhtedly  means  a  repub¬ 
lican  or  democratic  form  as  distinguished  from 
a  monarchial  form  of  government,  and  any 
measure  that  takes  away  power  from  our  rulers 
and  gives  it  back  to  the  people  would  certainly 
not  violate  the  spii-it  of  that  provision. 

This  plan  is  no  more  of  an  experiment  to¬ 
day  than  was  the  ITnited  States  constitution  one 
hundred  years  ago.  It  was  a  compromise  and 
satisfied  none  of  its  framers.  It  is  humiliatino; 
to  think,  as  so  many  appear  to  claim,  that  we 
can  learn  nothing  from  the  experience  of  the 
past  and  that  further  improvements  in  legisla¬ 
tion  are  impossible. 

A  century  ago  our  forefathers  snatched  away 
the  lawmaking  power  completely  from  the  hands 
of  hereditary  kings  and  princes  and  titled  nobil¬ 
ity  and  placed  it  in  the  hands  of  representatives 
elected  by  the  people.  To-day  the  time  has 
come  for  another  step  in  the  march  of  progress 
by  taking  away  from  our  representatives  the 
lawmaking  power,  and  giving  it  to  the  people 
to  whom  it  rightfully  belongs. 

This  is  the  unmistakalde  tendency  of  the  age. 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


16S 


The  framers  of  our  national  constitution  per¬ 
haps  gave  as  much  power  into  the  hands  of  the 
people  as  was  safe  in  their  day.  But  since  then 
times  have  changed  and  to-day  the  common  peo¬ 
ple  are  as  intelligent  as  their  rulers  were  a  few 
generations  ago.  The  leading  spirits  of  that 
convention  dreaded  the  power  of  the  people  and 
feared  to  trust  their  judgment  and  tried  to  place 
the  ruling  power  as  far  away  from  them  as  pos¬ 
sible.  They  tliQiight  the  people  could  not  be 
trusted  to  elect  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  So  a  few  presidential  electors  were  given 
the  complete  power  to  elect  the  President  with¬ 
out  regard  to  public  opinion.  Bnt  to-day  the 
people  virtually  vote  for  the  President  in  spite  of 
the  intention  of  the  framers  of  the  constitution 
and  in  violation  of  its  spirit.  Public  opinion 
now  rightfully  compels  our  presidential  electors 
to  elect  as  president  the  candidate  who  has  been 
chosen  by  the  people.  We  care  not  who  our 
electors  want  for  president.  We  treat  them  as 
our  agents  and  demand  that  they  do  our  bid¬ 
ding. 

Our  forefathers  also  thought  our  representa¬ 
tives  would  know  best  what  laws  we  need  and 


164 


THE  PEOPLE'S  PROBLEM 


gave  them  power  to  enact  those  laws  whether 
we  want  tliem  or  not.  But  to-day  we  are  will- 

t/ 

ing  to  rely  on  onr  own  judgment  and  demand  that 
onr  lawmakers  shall  enact  onr  will  alone  info 
law.  Onr  legislators  to  a  great  extent,  still  do 
as  they  please,  as  onr  forefathers  intended  they 
should,  hut  evej’y  time  they  do  so  the  people 
feel  that  they  are  betrayed.  To-day  we  care 
little  about  wbat  onr  representative  thinks  on 
important  questions.  We  demand  that  be  shall 
vote,  not  as  he  sees  bt  but  as  bis  constituents 
believe  and  if  he  refuses  we  desire  his  services 
no  longer.  We  ask  that  onr  representatives  be 
not  our  masters  but  onr  servants,  and  that  they 
do  onr  bidding.  And  in  no  other  way  can  this 
invariably  be  done  than  by  taking  the  lawmak¬ 
ing  power  into  onr  own  hands. 

The  writer  also  believes  that  the  only  imme¬ 
diate  remedy  for  municipal  corruption  and  mis- 
government  is  to  be  found  in  a  similar  measure. 
All  important  acts  of  a  city  council  of  general 
interest  to  the  public,  and  particularly  all  grants 
special  privileges  to  of  individuals  or  corporations 
should  be  submitted  to  the  citizens  for  approval. 
There  is  hardly  a  single  measure  that  has 


AND  ITS  SOLUTION. 


165 


disgraced  the  municipal  government  of  America 
that  would  have  been  adopted  if  it  had  required 
the  sanction  of  the  people.  It  would  be  abso¬ 
lutely  impossible  to  bribe  a  majority  of  the 
voters  of  a  large  city,  but  the  aldermen  are  al¬ 
most  invariably  for  sale. 

The  power  of  our  legislatures  to  elect  United 
States  senators  is  almost  equally  obnoxious. 
Our  constitution  framers  thought  tlie  people 
were  not  competent  to  select  those  senators  and 
that  the  wisdom  of  a  legislature  alone  was  equal 
to  the  task.  The  result  has  been  that  the  elec¬ 
tion  of  a  senator  frequently  prolongs  legislative 
sessions  for  weeks  or  months  at  a  great  expense 
to  the  public,  and  is  often  made  the  occasion  of 
corrupting  legislators,  and  frequently  results  in 
the  disgraceful  choice  of  senators  who  under  no 
considerations  whatever  would  have  been  elected 
by  the  people. 

If  the  federal  constitution  were  revised  to-day 
the  power  to  elect  senators  would  be  taken  away 
from  our  legislatures  and  given  to  the  people. 
Constitutional  amendments  of  that  nature  have 
often  been  proposed  but  our  political  machinery 


166 


THE  PEOPLE’S  PROBLEM 


is  SO  cumbersome  that  they  are  extremely  difficult 
to  adopt.  I  wish  to  suggest  how  the  people  of 
any  state  can  ^drtually  elect  their  United  States 
senators  without  a  constitutional  amendment. 
Let  the  leading  political  parties  of  the  state  at 
their  general  conventions  make  a  mutual  agree¬ 
ment  that  whenever  it  shall  become  necessary  to 
choose  such  senators,  that  each  political  party 
in  addition  to  nominating  candidates  for  state 
officers,  shall  also  nominate  a  candidate  for  the 
senatorship,  and  that  the  faith  of  the  political 
parties  be  pledged  that  their  members  of  the 
legislature,  regardless  of  party,  shall  elect  as  U. 
S.  senator  the  candidate  receiving  the  highest 
number  of  votes  at  such  election.  In  some 
such  way  as  this  without  even  a  constitutional 
amendment,  can  the  election  of  United  States 
senators  be  controlled  by  the  people  as  absolute¬ 
ly  as  is  the  choice  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States. 

Under  God,  let  the  People  Pule. 


j  * 


I 


>■  ; 


•  », 


